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The Bankruptcy of Effort and the Higher Sense of Faith | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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Hello and welcome to another session of Reformed Thinking.
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I am glad you were here with us. It's good to be here.
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If this is your first time tuning in, here is the deal.
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We take serious theological books, the kind that you know,
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usually sit on a shelf collecting dust because they
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look intimidating, and we open them up.
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We try to make them a little less intimidating.
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We do. We read them, we chew on them,
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and we try to figure out what they actually mean for us right
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here, right now. And just so you know where we're
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coming from, we approach these texts from a specific place.
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That's right, we are two friends who love the Lord, love the
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Scriptures, and stand pretty firmly on the ground of the
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Protestant Reformation. We hold to the Westminster
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Confession. We believe in the sovereignty of
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God. And we definitely believe in the
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necessity of grace. I'm here with my friend to help
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me work through a tough 1 today. It is good to be here, and tough
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is probably the right word for it.
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Yeah, we are going back to CS Lewis and Mere Christianity.
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We are looking at the chapter on faith, but not the simple stuff.
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Lewis splits faith into two parts.
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The first part is just belief. You know, holding on to what you
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know is true, even when your mood changes.
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And that's hard enough on its own.
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It is, but today we're looking at the second part, the higher
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sense of faith, and to get there we have to talk about failure.
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Total failure, not just a little slip up.
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Exactly. We are going to talk about
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hitting a wall, about realizing that no matter how hard you try,
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you simply cannot do what God demands.
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It sounds, well, it sounds a little bleak.
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It's a heavy topic for sure, but for anyone who feels exhausted
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by their own efforts to be a good Christian, this might be
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the most hopeful conversation we ever have.
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I want to start today with a warning and honestly is not my
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warning, it is CS Lewis's. Right at the start of the
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chapter. Yeah, we are opening up this
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chapter and right at the top of the page, Lewis basically tells
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the reader to put the book down. He really does.
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He says if this chapter means nothing to you, if it seems to
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be trying to answer questions you never asked, drop it at
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once. It is a jarring way to start a
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chapter. Usually an author is begging you
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to keep reading. They want to hook you.
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They do. Lewis is doing the opposite.
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He is saying effectively, if this does not make sense to you,
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stop. Don't worry about it, Go away.
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Which for me triggers my reverse psychology immediately.
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Of course it makes me want to read it more.
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But why does he do that? Yeah.
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Is he being elitist? Is he saying you aren't smart
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enough for this chapter? Not smart enough?
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No, I don't think that's it at all.
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Experienced enough? Maybe that's closer.
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He is making a really important point about the nature of the
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information he is about to share.
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And what's that? He compares it to a map.
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Imagine you and I are driving and I hand you a set of
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incredibly detailed directions for a specific intersection in
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Paris. Turn left at the statue, go past
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the bakery, merge right after the bridge.
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All very specific, but we are currently sitting in a driveway
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in Ohio. Those directions are useless to
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me. Absolutely useless.
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They are worse than useless. They are annoying.
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Turn left at the statue is confusing if there is no statue
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insight. Right, it just creates noise.
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Lewis is arguing that the higher sense of faith is not just a
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theory three you learn in a classroom.
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It isn't an abstract concept. It's a practical solution to a
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specific crisis. So if you have not hit the
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crisis yet, the. Solution is going to sound like
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nonsense, or worse, it'll sound offensive.
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So he is saying this chapter is for people who have hit a wall.
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That is the idea if you are cruising along in your spiritual
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life, feeling like a pretty decent person, feeling like you
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and God are on good terms because you know you put money
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in the offering plate and you are nice to your neighbors.
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He's doing OK. You feel like you're doing OK.
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This chapter will probably bother you.
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It answers a question you have not been forced to ask yet.
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OK well I am stubborn and I want to know what the question is
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because I feel like I have hit plenty of walls in my walk with
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the Lord. I think we all have the question
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is this. What do I do when I've tried my
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absolute best to be a Christian and I have failed completely?
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That is a terrifying place to be.
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It's the moment of truth. But Lewis says we have to go
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there. He talks about humility and
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teaching this too. He's very careful.
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He admits he could be wrong. I love that about him, he says.
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I am just trying to share what I have found and he asks
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instructed Christians to correct him if he's off base.
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It's such a great posture and it fits so well with our Reformed
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view of the church. We do not rely on one guy to
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have all the answers. No, we really don't.
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We submit our insights to the collective wisdom of the body of
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Christ, guided by Scripture. Lewis isn't claiming to be the
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Pope, not at all. He is just a fellow traveler
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saying, here is what the map looks like from where I am
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standing. Let me know if you see something
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different. So let's look at this map.
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Lewis says. He is talking about faith in
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higher sense, and he sets the context immediately.
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He says this question arises after a man has tried his level
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best to practice the Christian virtues.
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Right. Not before, after.
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So he tries to be loving, patient, chaste, humble.
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He gives his all. And what happens?
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He fails, but it is not just that he fails.
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That's almost the smaller point. OK, what's the bigger one?
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He discovers something about his own nature.
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Lewis uses this word bankruptcy, and he does not mean money.
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He is talking about moral bankruptcy.
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OK, I have to push back a little here just to play devil's
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advocate. Please do.
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I know plenty of people, non Christians even, who are decent,
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charitable, kind people. They don't look bankrupt to me,
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they look solvent. They are paying their bills,
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socially speaking. That is the great illusion it
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really is, and Lewis spends a lot of time taking it apart.
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See, we tend to view our relationship with God like a
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business deal. Or a school exam.
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Yes, a school exam. That's a perfect way to put it.
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Right, the cosmic report card. I get an A in charity, AB in
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patience, maybe AD in temper, but overall I have a passing
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grade point average. And if you pass, what happens?
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What do you expect from God? I expect him to say good job,
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come on in. So God owes you a diploma or he
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owes you a good life. That is the transactional view.
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I did my part. Now God must do his SO.
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That's a big crass when you say it like that.
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But isn't that how many of us operate?
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Lewis asks us to look closer at that.
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Goodness, if you are charitable, where did you get the money to
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be charitable? I earned it.
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And where did you get the health to work, the mind to think, the
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air to breathe? If you are patient, where did
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you get the nervous system that stays calm?
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Well, biologically from my parents, ultimately from God, I
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suppose, since He created everything.
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So you are taking capital that God gave you.
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His own stuff. You're taking his stuff, using
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it, and then demanding God pay you for it.
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It is like a child asking his father for $10, buying the
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father a birthday gift with that very same money.
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And then expecting the father to be indebted to him.
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Yes, now you owe me, Dad. It's absurd.
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OK, that's things a bit. When you put it that way, it
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sounds ridiculous. It should.
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It's meant to. Lewis calls it the discovery of
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our bankruptcy. It is the realization that even
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our best moments are A grades are not gifts we give to God.
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What are they then? They are just us paying back a
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fraction of the interest on a loan we can never clear, even if
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you were perfect for 24 hours straight.
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Which no one is. Which no one is.
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But even if you were, you would only be doing what you were
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built to do in the 1st place. You haven't generated any extra
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credit, you've just for one day not added to the debt.
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This sounds a lot like the doctrine of total depravity we
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talk about in Reformed circles. It is.
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It's Lewis arriving at the same conclusion through lived
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experience. And people get scared of that
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term. They hear total depravity and
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think it means you are as evil as you could possibly be, like
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you are a monster. Right, that you're just pure
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evil through and through. But that is not what it means at
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all. It means you are totally unable
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to pay the price. Every part of you, your will,
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your intellect, your emotions is touched by sin, and you have no
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currency of your own to buy God's favor.
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We are flat broke. We are and until you realize you
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are broke, you will never apply for debt relief.
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You will just keep trying to pay the mortgage with Monopoly
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money. It's a game you can't win.
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And This is why Lewis wants to shift our view of God.
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He says we have to stop seeing God as an examiner grading our
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paper or an opposite party in a legal dispute.
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He uses the analogy of the wheel right, the hub and the spokes.
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Yes, it's a fantastic image. Think about a wagon wheel.
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God is the hub at the very center.
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OK, we are the spokes and the rim.
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The outer part of the wheel is the world around us, our
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neighbors, our duties, our actions.
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Got it, Hub spokes. Rim now if the spokes are fitted
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correctly into the hub, if that central connection is solid.
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Then everything else has to line up.
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Inevitably, the spokes will be in the right position relative
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to the rim. It's a law of geometry.
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You don't have to worry about your relationship with the rim
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if your relationship with the hub is right.
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Because the structure itself dictates the position.
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Exactly. But if you are not connected to
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the hub, if you are a broken spoke, or if you are trying to
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be your own hub, then it does not matter how hard you try to
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align yourself with the rim. You're just floating.
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You're structurally unsound. And that's the point.
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Our right relationship with God is not a contract, it is a
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structural reality. We are creatures.
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He is the Creator. You cannot bargain with the
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source of your own existence. It's a category error.
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So if we are not bargaining and if we are not taking an exam,
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what are we doing? We're making a discovery.
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And Lewis argues, we're discovering that we cannot
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fulfill the requirements of the law.
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But he makes a distinction here that I think is critical.
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It really jumped out at me. What's that?
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He talks about saying this parrot fashion versus really
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knowing it. Oh.
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This is a huge trap for anyone raised in the church.
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I know I fell into it for years. Me too.
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If you grew up going to Sunday school, you were probably taught
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to say from a very young age, I am a Sinner, I have nothing to
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offer God. It's part of the vocabulary.
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You learn it with the Lord's Prayer.
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You can say that at age 7, you can say it at age 20, you can
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say it while you're feeling pretty good about yourself,
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actually. It becomes a password.
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You say the magic words I am a Sinner, and then you move on
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with your day, feeling quite righteous for having said them.
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Lewis calls that parrot fashion. You are just repeating words.
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You do not actually believe you are bankrupt.
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You just know it is the right answer to the theological
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question. It's like a child saying money
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doesn't grow on trees but then asking for a pony 5 minutes
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later. Perfect analogy.
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They say the words, but they haven't felt the weight of the
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reality. They don't understand the
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constraints. So how do we move from the
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parrot to the real thing? How do we stop just reciting the
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line and actually feel the bankruptcy in our bones?
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Lewis says there is only one way.
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Which is. You have to try.
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You have to try your absolute hardest to be good.
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That seems backward. That really seems
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counterintuitive. I thought the whole point was
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that we can't be good, so why try?
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Because you cannot know a thing is impossible until you try to
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do it and fail. You can't.
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You can be told it's impossible, but you won't believe it.
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You have to experience it. You have to.
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Louis has this brilliant insight about strength and temptation,
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He says. A man who gives in to temptation
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after 5 minutes simply does not know what it would have been
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like an hour later. He thinks it was a mild
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temptation. I remember reading that he says
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only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it
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is. Think about walking against the
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wind. If there is a Gale force wind
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outside and you go out and immediately lie down on the
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sidewalk. You don't feel much.
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You might say, oh, it is a bit breezy.
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You have no idea how strong the wind is because you weren't
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fighting it. You've just conceded
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immediately, right? But the man who tries to walk
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upright, who leans into it, who plants his feet and pushes with
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every ounce of muscle he has, he is the one who knows the
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terrible power of the wind. That is profound, it really is.
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It means the person who tries the hardest to be good is
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actually the one who has the deepest understanding of their
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own vadnais. That is the paradox the.
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Casual Sinner thinks, oh, I could be a St. if I really
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wanted to, I'm just not trying. But the person who really tries
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to be a St. realizes, no, actually I can't.
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It's impossible. That is the paradox.
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The road to the higher faith goes right through the middle of
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moral effort. We don't try hard in order to
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save ourselves. That's the crucial distinction.
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We're not trying to earn our way in.
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No, we try hard in order to prove to ourselves beyond a
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shadow of a doubt that we cannot save ourselves.
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It is an experiment designed to fail.
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In a sense, yes. The Reformed view of the law
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explains this perfectly. Why did God give the 10
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commandments? Why the Sermon on the Mount?
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It wasn't just to give us a checklist.
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It was not. It was to act as a mirror.
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The law exists to crush our self-confidence.
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It holds up the standard which is absolute perfection so that
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we look at it and realize how far short we fall.
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It's designed to break our pride.
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So the destination of all this trying isn't success, It is what
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Lewis calls the vital moment. The vital moment.
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It is the moment the ego dies. It is the moment you finally
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stop looking at yourself for a solution.
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And you turn somewhere else. You turn to God and say you must
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do this. I can't.
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That is the destination. It is the moment of despair.
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Despair sounds bad. We usually try to talk people
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out of despair. Don't despair.
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In this context, despair is the healthiest thing in the world.
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But we have to be specific. It is despair of the self.
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OK, as long as you have a tiny bit of hope that you can fix
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yourself that with a little more effort you can pull it off.
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You will never really look at Christ.
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You keep looking at your own bootstraps.
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You have to give up on you before you can rely on him
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completely. OK, so let's say a listener is
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there. They've been on this road, they
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have tried, they have have failed.
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They were in that moment of despair that.
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Crucial moment. Louis pivots here to talk about
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what goes on in our heads when this transition happens, and he
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gives another warning. He warns us about introspection.
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Yes, he says. Do not sit down and start
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watching your own mind to see if it is coming along.
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This is such practical advice. It's so wise.
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We live in a very therapeutic age.
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We do. We're all about self analysis.
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We are constantly analyzing our feelings.
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Do I feel safe today? Do I feel faithful?
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Is my faith strong enough? Lewis says.
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That puts a man on the wrong track completely.
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He uses the analogy of insomnia, which hit home for me because I
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am a terrible sleeper. Tell me about that.
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What happens when you try to force yourself to sleep?
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Oh, it is the worst. It's a guarantee that I'll be
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awake for hours. Yeah.
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You lay there. You think.
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OK, I need to sleep. Am I sleeping yet?
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My breathing is slowing down. Is that sleep coming?
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You're checking on the process. And the minute I check to see if
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I am sleeping, I am wide awake. The act of checking destroys the
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process. That is it.
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That's the whole point. You cannot look at the thing and
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look at yourself looking at the thing at the same time.
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Your attention is split. You become self-conscious.
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You do. And Lewis argues that when the
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most important things in life happen, we often don't know
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they're happening in the moment. A man doesn't say hello.
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I'm growing up right now. No, of course not.
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He looks back years later and realizes, oh, I grew up.
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The change was happening when he wasn't looking at it.
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So faith is similar. We shouldn't be taking our
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spiritual temperature every 5 minutes.
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We should not, because faith is by its very nature and outward
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orientation. What do you mean by that?
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It is looking at Christ, not looking at your own faith.
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If you were looking at your faith, you are looking at
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yourself. It is like a man trying to see
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if his eyes are working by looking at his own eyeballs in a
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mirror. He's missing the point.
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He is missing the sunset right in front of him.
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His eyes are for looking out, not in.
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Our faith is for looking at Christ.
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That helps. It takes the pressure off
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feeling faithful all the time. It should.
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Lewis also points out that this change, this shift from
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self-confidence to Christ confidence, can happen in a
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flash or can be very, very slow. And I am so glad he validates
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the slow path. We often hear these dramatic
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testimonies. I was a drug dealer.
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Then I saw a light and boom, I'm a pastor.
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The Damascus Rd. Experiences.
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And those are great. They are real.
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But for many people, especially those raised in the church, it
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is a gradual sunrise, not a lightning bolt.
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That's very comforting, he says. It does not matter how it
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happens. It does not matter how it feels
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while it is happening. The feelings are secondary.
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What matters is the nature of the change itself, and how does
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he define that change. He defines it as moving from a
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state of being confident in our own efforts to a state where we
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despair of doing anything for ourselves and leave it to God.
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That is the definition of the higher sense of faith.
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It's not an emotional high. No, it is a relocation of trust.
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It's a fundamental shift in where you place your confidence.
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Let's drill down into that phrase.
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Leave it to God. It sounds a bit like a bumper
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sticker, you know, Let go and let God.
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He can sound very passive and that's not what he means.
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OK, So what does Lewis mean by it?
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It's something very specific and very theological.
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He talks about Christ sharing something with us.
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This is the heart of the gospel and we really need to take our
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time here because this is where the magic happens.
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This is the good news. Lewis says that trusting God
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means trusting that Christ will somehow share with us the
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perfect human obedience which he carried out from his birth to
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his crucifixion. In Reformed theology, we call
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this the imputation of active obedience.
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That is a mouthful. It is.
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Let's break that down. Think about the life of Jesus.
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He didn't just show up on a Friday to die on the cross.
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No, he lived a full life. He lived for 33 years.
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He faced every temptation we face and more.
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He dealt with difficult people, physical pain, exhaustion,
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sorrow, and in every single second of that life, he obeyed
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the Father perfectly. He fulfilled the law.
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He. Earned the A on the report card
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we talked about earlier. He earned a perfect score.
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Now on the cross, he takes our F.
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He takes the penalty for our failure.
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That is his passive obedience, his suffering.
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That's what we usually focus on, His death for our sins.
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Right, but that is only half the story.
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If I go to the courthouse and pay your $100 speeding ticket?
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My debt is gone. Your debt is gone.
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You are no longer in debt, but you aren't rich.
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You are just at 0. Right, I am neutral.
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But Christ does more. He doesn't just clear our debt.
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He gives us his a He credits his perfect life, his perfect
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righteousness to our account. So when God God looks at us, he
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doesn't just see a Sinner whose debt is paid.
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He sees the righteousness of his own Son.
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He sees the perfection of Jesus. Lewis uses the term sonship.
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He says Christ shares his sonship with us.
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Yes, by nature we are creatures. God made us like a Potter makes
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a pot, but we are not his children by nature, not in the
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same way Jesus is. Jesus is the only begotten Son.
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He has the same life as the father.
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Louis compares it to a tin soldier coming to life.
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I love that image. The tin soldier is the likeness
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of a man, but it isn't a man. Right.
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It has the shape but not the life.
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We are like tin soldiers. We were made in God's image, but
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that image is broken and lifeless because of sin.
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So what did Christ do? Christ came into the tin soldier
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world. He became a man and now if we
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are connected to him by faith, he transmits his life into us.
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The tin soldier starts to turn into flesh and blood.
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He shares his Zoe, his spiritual life with us.
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We become sons and daughters of God.
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And here is the kicker. Lewis puts it so bluntly, so
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powerfully. He says Christ offers something
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for nothing. Something for nothing.
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In fact, he offers everything for nothing.
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Everything for nothing. That is the deal of the century.
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It's the ultimate free gift, but Lewis says the difficulty isn't
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the price. We love a bargain.
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We do. So what's the difficulty?
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The difficulty is the humility. Why is it so hard to take a free
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gift? Because we want to be the kind
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of person who can pay for dinner.
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We want to feel like we contributed.
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We want to bring something to the table.
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We want to earn our keep. Exactly.
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To accept a gift of this magnitude requires us to admit
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that all our previous efforts, all those times we tried to be
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good, all our religious duties, all our good deeds were, in
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terms of purchasing power with God, worth 0.
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It is humiliating. It means admitting I am a
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charity case. We are all charity cases.
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That is what grace means. It's unmerited favor.
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You have to throw up the sponge as Lewis puts.
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It up the fike. You have to stop trying to
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conquer sin in your own strength to impress God.
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You have to admit you are a toddler who can't even tie his
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own shoes asking the father to carry you.
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But. And here is the twist, because
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there's always A twist with Louis.
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He immediately clarifies that throwing up the sponge doesn't
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mean we become lazy. No, it doesn't mean we sit on
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the couch and wait for Holiness to ZAP us like a microwave
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dinner. This is where he steers through
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the razor's edge between faith and works, which is such a
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historically contentious issue. He says handing everything over
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to Christ does not mean you stop trying, It means you try in a
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new way. He uses the doctor analogy,
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right? If I go to the doctor and say I
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trust you implicitly, Dr., you know what's best?
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You're putting your faith in Him.
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But then he prescribes me pills and tells me to change my diet
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and I go home and throw the pills in the trash and eat pizza
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for every meal. Do I really trust him?
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No, you are lying. Your actions betray your words.
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Trust implies listening. If I trust the doctor, I take
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the pills. Not because taking the pills
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makes me a doctor or earns my healing, but because taking the
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pills is the natural response to trusting his expertise.
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So effort isn't removed from the Christian lies.
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Motivation for the effort changes completely.
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That is the key. That's the whole shift.
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The old way of trying was anxious.
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It was worried. It was trying in order to be
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saved working. For a wage.
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If I do this, God won't hurt me. It's driven by fear.
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The new way is less worried. You are trying because he has
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begun to save you. It's a huge difference.
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You are acting not to buy heaven, but because, as Lewis
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says, a first faint gleam of heaven is already inside you.
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I love that image, the faint gleam of heaven.
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It shifts the entire focus from fear to gratitude.
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It does. I am not working to keep God
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from hitting me. I am working because His life is
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pulsing through me. It is the difference between a
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slave working to avoid a whipping and a son working to
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please his father. Spot on.
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And this leads directly to his famous analogy about the
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scissors. He addresses the dispute that
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has been going on for 500 years. Is it fake that saves or is it
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works? The heavyweight title fight of
22:46
theology Faith versus works in this corner.
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And Lewis, with his characteristic humility, says I
22:51
have no right really to speak on such a difficult question.
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But it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of
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scissors is most necessary. It is a brilliant image because
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it shows the absurdity of the question.
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You can't cut paper with one blade.
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You can't. You need both blades to cut.
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But we have to be careful with the analogy.
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And Lewis is he doesn't mean faith and works are two equal
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partners contributing 5050 to salvation.
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He isn't saying God does half, I do half.
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That'll go right back to the bargaining table we just left.
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Exactly. He describes a cycle, a process.
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Let's trace it. OK, step one.
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Serious moral effort. You try to be good with all your
23:31
right? Step 2.
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Failure. You realize you can't be good.
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You hit the wall. And Step 3.
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Despair. You realize you need help from
23:39
outside yourself. Step. 4.
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Faith you trust Christ to do for you what you could not do for
23:45
yourself. And then what?
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Is that the end? No Step 5 new works because you
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have Christ's life in you, because you are connected to the
23:53
hub, you start doing good things naturally from a new motivation.
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So the good actions are the fruit of faith, not the root of
23:59
it. Yes, but if the fruit isn't
24:01
there, you have to question if the root is even alive.
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If the scissors are actually cutting, both blades are moving.
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You cannot separate the trusting from the doing.
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They are one single motion. He elaborates on this by
24:13
bringing up what he calls parodies of the truth.
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I found this really helpful. The ditches on either side of
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the road. Exactly.
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He talks about two extremes that Christians have fallen into
24:22
historically. Right, Let's look at ditch #1.
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We might call this legalism or commercialism.
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This is the group that says good actions are all that matters.
24:32
I know this mindset well. It treats religion like a
24:35
business. I give money to the church I
24:38
serve at the soup kitchen. I don't cheat on my spouse so
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God sees me through. Lewis calls these commercial
24:44
speculations, not good actions. Ouch.
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If you are being nice to your neighbor just to buy a ticket to
24:50
heaven, you aren't actually being nice, you're being
24:54
mercenary. You are using your neighbor as a
24:56
stepping stone to get what you want.
24:57
And God sees the heart. He sees the heart and he sees a
25:01
bribe, not love. So those good works are not good
25:04
at all. And on the other side, dish #2.
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The other side is what theologians call antinomianism,
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That is a fancy Greek word meaning against the law.
25:12
In modern terms, we'd probably call it cheap grace.
25:15
That's a good term for it. This is the person who says
25:18
faith is all that matters. Christ paid the bill.
25:21
I am covered by the blood, so it doesn't matter if I cheat on my
25:24
taxes or scream at my kids. Once saved, always saved so I
25:28
could do what I want. We have all encountered that
25:30
attitude. I am saved, so my behavior is
25:32
irrelevant. Lewis just destroys that logic.
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He says if your faith doesn't involve taking the flightest
25:39
notice of what Christ says, then it isn't faith.
25:42
What is it then? It is just intellectual
25:44
acceptance of a theory. Right.
25:46
You might believe that Jesus is the Savior because you believe
25:49
that E equals MC squared. It's a fact you accept, but you
25:52
aren't trusting Him. Exactly.
25:54
The demons believe that God exists, as James says in the
25:57
Bible. They have correct theology in a
25:59
sense, but they don't trust him. They tremble.
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True faith involves a realignment of the will.
26:05
It has to. If you trust him, you follow
26:07
him. If you are sitting in the mud
26:09
refusing to move, you don't trust the guide who is telling
26:12
you to get up. So we have this tension.
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We work, but God works. We try, but we trust.
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Lewis brings it all to a head with a specific Bible verse that
26:22
he calls one amazing sentence. Yes, from Philippians chapter 2.
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Philippians 2.1213. Work out your own salvation with
26:31
fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you.
26:34
It is a baffling text. If you were trying to use human
26:37
logic, it seems like a direct contradiction.
26:38
It does. The first half sounds like it
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all depends on us. Work it out.
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Fear and trembling get busy. And the second-half sounds like
26:45
it all depends on God. He's the one working in you so
26:49
you can relax. And most of us want to resolve
26:51
that tension. We want to pick one side or the
26:53
other. We want to say, OK, God starts
26:55
it, I finish it. Or I do the easy stuff.
26:57
God does the heavy lifting. We want to draw a line down the
27:00
middle of the project. Lewis says we are trying to
27:02
create watertight compartments. We want to be able to say he did
27:06
this bit. I did that bit like two men
27:08
painting a wall together. I painted the left side, God
27:11
painted the right side. But Lewis argues that this way
27:14
of thinking breaks down completely.
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Because God is not another person working alongside us, OK?
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He is the Creator working inside us.
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That is a crucial distinction. If I help you lift a heavy
27:25
table, I'm lifting one end, you're lifting the other.
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We are separate beings, cooperating.
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Right, but God's relationship to us is more intimate than that,
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the Bible says. In Him we live and move and have
27:37
our being. He's the very ground of our
27:39
existence. So when we act in faith.
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It is truly us acting. We are making the choice, we are
27:45
doing the work, but it is simultaneously and fundamentally
27:49
God enabling that action from the inside out.
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It reminds me of writing a story.
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Hamlet kills Polonius. Who killed Polonius?
27:56
What Hamlet did? He was his sword.
27:58
Right, the character performed the action.
28:00
But also Shakespeare killed Polonius.
28:02
Shakespeare wrote the action. Shakespeare is the author of
28:04
Hamlet's Being. That is a helpful analogy that
28:07
the author works in the character.
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The language breaks down here because we don't have words for
28:12
a relationship where one being is the ground of existence for
28:15
the other. So we just have to hold the
28:17
paradox. We simply have to accept it.
28:19
We work because he is at work. Our effort is the evidence of
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his energy within us, not a replacement for it.
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As we move toward the end of the chapter, Lewis paints this
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beautiful picture of the destination, right?
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Where is all this leading? Right.
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It's not just about getting out of hell.
28:37
There's a goal. He says Christianity starts with
28:39
morality, duties, rules, guilt, but it leads beyond them.
28:44
This is a beautiful vision, he says.
28:46
We get a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of these
28:49
things in heaven. They don't sit around talking
28:51
about being good or doing their duties.
28:53
Why not? Are there no rules?
28:55
Is it just chaos? No, not at all.
28:57
There's no need to talk about them because they are filled
28:59
with goodness. He uses the mirror analogy
29:01
again. A mirror that is filled with
29:03
light doesn't talk about the light, it just shines.
29:06
The people in that country are not thinking about their own
29:08
virtue. They are not focused on
29:10
themselves at all. So what are they focused on?
29:12
They are too busy looking at the source.
29:15
At God. Yes, they're looking at the sun,
29:17
SON, and reflecting the light of the sun SUN.
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It is the end of self consciousness.
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We spend so much time here on earth worrying about ourselves.
29:28
Am I good? Did I do enough?
29:30
Do people like me? Am I growing spiritually?
29:33
That is the curse of the fall. We are obsessed with the self.
29:36
Even our religion becomes about my performance, my spiritual
29:39
growth, my quiet time. It's all about me.
29:42
But in that higher state, in that country, we are so focused
29:46
on God, the source, that we reflect his goodness
29:50
effortlessly. We become what we were meant to
29:52
be, without the agonizing struggle of trying to
29:55
manufacture it. And that is the ultimate
29:57
freedom. The higher sense of faith Lewis
30:00
talks about begins with the despair of self effort, but it
30:03
ends with the forgetfulness of self.
30:05
That's a great way to put it. We start by realizing we are
30:07
bankrupt, and we end by being so rich in Christ that we stop
30:11
counting the coins. That is a powerful trajectory.
30:14
It moves from I must do this to I cannot do this to he has done
30:17
this to, we're doing this together to finally.
30:20
I'm not even thinking about this anymore.
30:21
I'm just looking at him. So let's recap where we have
30:24
been today. This has been a lot to chew on.
30:26
It has. It's a deep chapter.
30:28
We started with the warning. This is for those on the road,
30:31
not just the armchair theologians.
30:33
You need to feel the wind to know its strength.
30:35
We moved to the bankruptcy, the realization that we cannot buy
30:40
God off. We are using his own capital to
30:43
try and pay him back, which is just absurd when you think about
30:46
it. We talked about the necessity of
30:47
failure. We have to try hard to realize
30:50
we can't do it, That failure drives us to the vital moment of
30:54
surrender, of throwing up the sponge.
30:57
We discussed the great exchange Christ's act of obedience
31:00
transferred to us. He gives us his A grade and
31:03
takes our. F We looked at the scissors of
31:04
faith and works, the cycle of despair leading to faith leading
31:08
to fruit, and we ended with the mystery of God working in us to
31:11
produce a goodness that we we don't even have to think about.
31:14
It is a dense chapter, but the core message is so liberating.
31:18
It tells us that our failure is not the end of the story.
31:21
No, in fact, our failure is the preface to the real story.
31:24
For the Reformed believer, this is the doctrine of grace applied
31:28
to the daily grind of life. It means your bad days are not
31:32
evidence that you wanted to Christian.
31:34
They might be the very evidence that you are learning the higher
31:37
sense of faith. How so?
31:39
You are learning to lean, you are learning your own weakness,
31:43
which is the prerequisite for relying on his strength and it.
31:47
Changes how we view our struggles when we fall, when we
31:50
find ourselves unable to be patient or kind instead of just
31:54
beating ourselves up. Which is our first instinct it.
31:57
Is but instead of that we can use that moment we can say Lord,
32:00
here is more evidence of my bankruptcy.
32:02
I cash this check at the cross. You must do this.
32:05
I can't. Amen.
32:06
That is the prayer of the higher faith.
32:08
Before we go, I want to leave you with a thought to Mull over.
32:11
We talked about the mirror analogy, that in the end we will
32:14
be like mirrors, reflecting God's light, not thinking about
32:17
ourselves. A beautiful picture of heaven.
32:19
It is. So think about your own
32:21
religious life right now. How much of your prayer, your
32:24
worship, your daily worry is focused on the mirror?
32:27
That is a challenging question. Are you constantly scrubbing the
32:30
glass, checking for spots? Worrying about the frame?
32:33
Polishing it to make it look good.
32:35
Is it possible that your obsession with your own
32:38
spiritual progress is actually the very thing blocking the
32:42
light? Getting in the way of the real
32:44
thing? What?
32:45
Would it look like today for you to stop looking at the mirror
32:49
and just turn your face to the sun?
32:51
I think that is the question we all need to answer every day.
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Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into Mere
32:57
Christianity. We hope this session of Reformed
32:59
thinking has been helpful to you.
33:01
Until next time, keep reading, keep thinking, and keep looking
33:04
to the source.