Tullian admitted that he did not realize early on enough that he actually had an assigned topic for the conference, so with that in mind he went with his “go-to” topic: law and grace, looking at Romans 7:7-8:4.

“Ethical Behaviorism” defines righteousness exclusively in terms of what you do or do not do. It is most concerned primarily with external behavior. When applied to Christianity, may people have the idea that “Christians are people who do what is right because it is right to do what is right.” But God reminds us that the goodness of a deed can be destroyed by the motivation that inspires it.

For most Christians, righteousness is defined by what we do or don’t do. But Jesus turns this upside down in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus demolishes “Ethical Behaviorism,” an external form of righteousness. Though most of us think we’re theologically astute enough to avoid works-righteousness, we still tend to live this way in practical life.

The goodness of a deed can be destroyed by the motivation that inspires it. What motivates our obedience determines whether or not it is a sacrifice of praise. Christianity is so much more than simply a question of behavior; it is a question of motivation. Not just what we do but why we do it. Grace, not law is our motivation. When we strive to obey because of the law, we find ourselves actually being motivated by fear and guilt. But when we are motivated by grace, we are soaked in humble gratitude.

We often have the misconception that the law sends us to Jesus for justification and then Jesus sends us back to the Law for sanctification; as though the Gospel saves but doesn’t grow. But Scripture tells us that the Law shows us our sin but it does not change our hearts. If we don’t understand this, we will tend to revert to “ethical behaviorism” as our default. And yet there is a lot of mistrust of grace within the church these days. Many of have come to believe that grace can be dangerous and needs to be “kept in check.” Too much grace leads to bad fruit, many people believe. But the law, apart from the Gospel cannot cure it can only crush.

Desperate people love grace. Deceived people fear it. The law brings us to the end of ourselves and to look up to the Gospel. You will never find rest for your weary soul looking inward; only looking outward, to the Cross; outside of ourselves; Christ’s obedience for us. The determining factor in our relationship with God is not our obedience but Christ’s obedience. While we were at our worst, Christ gave us His best.

Tim Chester, of The Crowded House in the UK reminds us that one of the main areas of life in which The Gospel is lived out is the home; the family. But it’s not always apparent how the Gospel should affect the way we parent. After all, isn’t a large part of parenting setting rules and boundaries? How can we go about this without raising little legalists?

The Gospel story informs our parenting and leads us to “missional parenting.” As the Gospel of Mark opens, we are told that the “Good News” is that the Kingdom of God has come. And yet, to many of us, the fact that God is in charge and we are not is not immediately seen as “good news.” But the Gospel places us not under a tyrannical rule but a grace-filled Father.

One of the main problems with way we parent is that we still see the idea of “rule” as oppressive. We resent our government, we complain about our bosses and we often exasperate our children, driving them to resent our rule rather than experiencing boundaries as an extension of our love for them.

Chester offers five points to help us understand how the Gospel impacts parenting:

• The main goal: model loving authority.

The home is one of the main places we learn to submit to authority instead of living for ourselves. The family is an important context in which we proclaim and demonstrate the goodness of Christ’s rule, though there are two ways we often get this wrong: 1) child-centered and 2) parent-centered. Christ is the center, not us.The main goal is not control but children who love God.

• The main hope: your child knowing and serving God.

When our children look at our lives, what would they say matters most to us? If it is not God, then perhaps we shouldn’t worry as much about the “world’s” influence on our children but our influence. The goal is to teach our children to treasure Christ above all things and they will watch whether or not this is true of us first. If we don’t “get grace,” parenting will crush you. Our children will know what we value most. What do you praise your child for most? Sports? Grades? or loving others? They will learn to pursue what you praise them for most. For many of us, children are actually an idol; where we find fulfillment.

• The main focus: Your Child’s heart.

Our behaviors always flow from the heart. It is not enough simply to modify a child’s behavior. We often discipline for selfish reasons (we want a quiet home, our reputation, etc.). If this is the case, we’ll often go to whatever lengths necessary to control behavior through manipulations, fear, bribery, and emotionalism. Our role as parents is to address behavior through addressing the heart. We must not only ask what the behavior is but what drives it. Do we continually make excuses for our child’s misbehavior (he’s just tired, it’s all the sugar he eats, etc.). Our actions are always the outworking of the heart.

• The main battleground: Your heart.

One of the main difficulties in parenting is not always our child’s behavior, but our own hearts. When our heart is not completely given over to God, we will not respond calmly to situations but out of frustration.

• The main theme: Grace

Parenting often feels like a battle, because it is. One of our main roles as parents is to bear the image of God to our children; to show them what our Heavenly Father is like. Children need to learn to live under authority but they also need to learn of a Father who loves His enemies and gives His own live for those enemies. Our number one aim is to show how great it is to live under God’s gracious reign of love.

Darrin Patrick, wearing all grey, opened up the conference with a challenge: simply proclaiming the Word of God is not enough. We are to live out the implications of the Gospel. We tend to swing to one end of the spectrum; we consider ourselves “Bible guys” who elevate the proclamation of the Word over everything else or “Social Justice” people who over-emphasize action over Word.

If we are to live in this tension between Word and Deed, between love of God and love for people, we must keep the Gospel at the center, or we will begin to confuse grace and works. Patrick defined the Gospel as:

The gospel is the good news that the Eternal God entered our sinful world as theEternal Son of God, Jesus, and lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father(Jesus) died as a sacrifice in the place of sinners, rose triumphantly from deathas a sign of sin’s defeat and the Father’s acceptance of his Son’s atoningsacrifice, establishing righteousness for those who had no righteousness oftheir own.

Jesus’ death and resurrection are the permanent place-holders for sinners’ right-standing before the Holy God. Jesus’ perfect life and atoning death perpetuallysubstitutes for forgiven sinners’ imperfect life and judgment that deserves death.

1 John 3 reminds us that we are “children of God” who are to lay down our lives for others the way Jesus has done for us. Social justice should be an implication and outworking of the church’s everyday life. Everywhere we turn, there are consequences of sin. James tells us that “pure and undefiled religion” includes caring for orphans (James 1:27).

While many of us have understood the Gospel in terms of the question: “What if I died tonight?” while the question many people are actually asking is “What if I have to live tomorrow?” The Gospel has real, everyday implications into which we are called to live. This means getting to know our neighbors, learning their needs and challenges before we strive for global justice. This is not an either/or question but if we’re not living out the Gospel in our own context, then are we really going to truly have a heart for justice across the world? The church should be at the forefront of changing the world, beginning in our own neighborhoods.

If the Gospel is not pushing us to action then we probably don’t understand the fullness of the Gospel. It’s about much more than just getting our souls into heaven when we die. Patrick answered the question “What does this look like in the life of my church?” with several key principles:

• The church is called first and foremost to proclaim the Gospel (don’t try to use the issue of social justice to avoid the offense of the Cross.
• We must not use the issue of social justice to try and avoid the offense of the Cross.
• Churches should plant other churches in under-resourced areas.
• The “institutional Church” must equip individuals who will become the “organic” Church.

The Gospel is about more than just getting our souls into heaven, it should drive us to and equip us for loving “the least of these” as God has loved us through Jesus. The Gospel often shines brightest in the darkest places of our cities. What would happen in our cities if people looked to the Church first? God loves the widow, the poor, the orphan, the fatherless. Do we?

Patrick’s challenge is timely and powerful and forces us to consider the truly grand scope of the Gospel for all of life while understanding and practicing the difference between grace and works. True grace always produces works. Do we understand grace that deeply?

I am very humbled to have been asked to be one of the “featured bloggers” at this year’s Together For Adoption conference here in Phoenix. This means that, today and tomorrow, I hope to have several posts highlighting the conference. The first thing you should know is that it’s much more than simply being told Christians should support adoption, though that is certainly true.

But, as I posted yesterday, much of the Christian life is actually a question of motivation. One of the beauties of this conference is that it strives to give us a heart for adoption precisely because, we, as believers, have been adopted by God. Even though we were once God’s enemies (Romans 5:10) and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1) God, because of the great love with which He loves us, has made us part of His family. We can know share in God’s inheritance (Colossians 1:12). We can now draw near to God as our Father (Galatians 4:6).

As children of God, we approach adoption not just as a social justice issue (which it certainly is) but as ones who have been adopted; as people who want to do for others what God has done for us through Jesus. There are few opportunities to live out our faith than adoption. I am so thankful to see a growing consensus that the truth about God should drive our actions. I pray that this movement would continue to spread and that the Church would be moved to compassion and action because of God’s great love for us. It is so encouraging to see a love for deep theology driving us to action.

Stay tuned for more posts from the conference.

• Visit the Together For Adoption website

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Read about the final moments of Muammar Gaddafi’s life.

Read about “Drunkorexia.”

Read this profile of The Civil Wars.

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Tim Chester, of The Crowded House in the UK will be preaching for our Church of the Cross family this Sunday. His book Total Church (co-written with Steve Timmis) has had a tremendous influence on the way our church family lives together. Chester’s book You Can Change is one of the best “gospel-application” books I’ve read in a long time. I refer to it in a variety of situations.

Chester is here in AZ to speak at the Together For Adoption conference and the Surge Network had him train local leaders last night. Chester hit on something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately; the question of motivation. It seems as though many people approach the Christian life as a list of rules and regulations; they can do and things they cannot do. They are concerned with things Christians “should not” be doing, which is somewhat understandable. After all, those who follow Christ should be different than the rest of the world.

What’s difficult about this is that, at least externally, many of these people “look holy” (Colossians 2:16-23,  2 Timothy 3:5, etc.) without understanding the true and better motivation for striving to become more like Jesus. The result is often that we have people that look good externally while rotting on the inside (Matthew 23:27, etc.). For many of us, Christianity is about changing our behaviors while forgetting that our behaviors always flow from the heart. Christianity is often a question of motivation. As Chester said last night:

the Gospel changes behavior; not by you shouldn’t do that, but you need not do that.

If you find yourself driving and spot a police officer in your rear-view mirror, you might grumble to yourself: dagnabbit, I’m running late and I have to get to my destination but this cop is behind me, grrrrrrr, I guess I have to go the speed limit, at least while he’s behind me as you grip the steering wheel in frustration. That police officer could care less about why you’re driving the speed limit as long as you drive the speed limit.

It seems as though many of us approach the Christian life like driving with a cop behind us. We begrudgingly change certain behaviors because we shouldn’t do certain things. Yet, if we are trying to change behaviors because of “should,” it is a burden, we feel beat up or prideful/judgmental (depending on how well we succeed or fail at changing certain behaviors).

It is true that there are behaviors that are not fitting for Christians, but we are continually faced with the question of how to best change those behaviors. If we simply tell ourselves that we shouldn’t do this or that, we’re most likely not going to see real, long-term change because our motivation is not deep enough.

It’s of the utmost importance that we continually ask the question of motivation. Why are we trying to change certain behaviors? Though Scripture does say that a Christian’s behavior should, over the course of time, change, it follows the pattern of indicative before imperative. God did not come to the Israelites while they were slaves in Egypt and tell them: “OK, here’s 10 rules I want you to live by and if you do well, then I’ll redeem you from slavery.”

In fact, the order is quite the opposite. God redeemed His people from slavery, then took them to Sinai, even prefacing the Ten Commandments with a reminder of Who He Is and What He had done for His people (Exodus 20:1-3). This pattern holds true throughout Scripture. When Paul urges the Philippians to live in unity and consider one another as more significant than themselves, he points to the fact that Christ is our motivation (Philippians 2:1-11). When Paul tells husbands to sacrificially love their wives, he points out that this exactly how Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33) and when Paul urges the Corinthians to give for the famine in Jerusalem, he points to the fact that, though Jesus was “rich,” He became “poor” for our sake (2 Corinthians 8:9).

The question of behavior change in the Christian life is not one of we no longer should do certain things but that we no longer need to do certain things. It forces us to ask why we are prone to certain sins; are we looking for control, comfort/satisfaction, are we trying to prove ourselves or have a good appearance before others? The most effective way to fight sin is not with rules but with a greater pleasure. We no longer have to look to the trinkets of this world because Jesus is the True and Better.

Our motivation for change is not just to bring behaviors “in line” but joyful humility at Who God is and what He has done for us in Christ. We no longer need to sin because we have the True and Better in Jesus. This requires the self-awareness to not only continually examine our actions but the affections that drive them and bring them back to the Cross. Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). I wonder how many of actually experience this freedom in the Christian life?

the Gospel changes behavior; not by you shouldn’t do that, but you need not do that.

Wilco performs a Tiny Desk concert for NPR: