FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

Jesus says his heart is gentle and holy. His heart, we know from the testimony of Old Testament and New, is not anything frothy. It's not merely your emotional or affectional life. It's what pours out most deeply from your innermost core. And when Jesus tells us what his heart is, he says gentle and lowly.

Conclusion. If we think that he's got a clipboard in his hand and he's taking notes on how we're doing, with a good side and a bad side, we'll see how it all ledgers out at the end. Forget it. That's not sustainable. You can't do that. You can only do that for a certain amount of time, and then you will crash and burn or give up the faith or something.

But what if, as we go stumbling our way through the Christian life, we're free to honor Christ by letting his forgiveness loom larger than all of our guilt, shame, and regret?

Speaker 2

Welcome to Family Life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us@familylifetoday.com this is Family Life today. Have you ever heard someone say, if I walked into the church, the walls would come down?

Speaker 2

My brother said that. I've heard a lot of people say that, actually, but I remember my brother saying that, and his thought was, I have so much sin in my life, there's no way that a sinner like me can be accepted in church.

Speaker 3

Although he never told us that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, I mean, that's what we think. We think that God would never embrace a sinner. And the truth is so much different and more beautiful than that.

And that's what we're going to talk about today. So we've got our guest today who's in the studio, Dane Ortland. Thanks for being with us today, Dane. Welcome to Family Life Today.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Good to talk with you guys.

Speaker 2

Yeah, We've already spent a day. Boy, what a program. Talking about.

Speaker 3

I think I cried throughout most of it.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I look over and she's in tears the whole time. Talking about the heart of Jesus, being gentle and lowly, which was the title of your book, Gentle and Lowly, which is a book on that. The very heart of Jesus, which is so paradigm shifting.

Speaker 3

If you haven't picked up the book, you need to pick it up, read it, put it beside your bed, even if you read a few pages every night, because it will transform your view of Jesus and God.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And obviously you're a pastor in the Chicago area. Married how many years?

Speaker 3

20.

Speaker 1

Coming up on 20.

Speaker 2

Yeah. We get into the idea that Jesus is so much different than a lot of us think and behave. How does that affect how we approach him?

As a pastor, I often noticed that people were sort of afraid of me. I mean, in some sense they weren't, but they were. It's like, as the Detroit Lions chaplain, if I walked into the Detroit Lions locker room, which I did daily, every once in a while, somebody would say, "Oh, sorry, Pastor," when they cursed. It was as if they felt they couldn't be themselves around me, and they wanted to run away.

My response was always, "You don't understand me at all. I don't think less of you because of that. I actually would love to spend time with you." I felt that disconnect, and I know you've experienced the same thing as a pastor.

I know Jesus felt that too, but that's not his heart. So let's talk about how we approach him, if that's who he is.

Speaker 1

Oh, boy, I've experienced that too. Not in an NFL locker room, but people thinking they have to suddenly really watch what they say when they're around you. How Sinclair Ferguson is an author who makes this point in one of his books. People view me or you in our preaching. They form a picture of Christ based on how we are—not mainly what we say, but how we are, looking people in the eyes and the tone and posture with which we are conducting ourselves towards Him.

I want to give people, to come back around to your question now, the aroma of Jesus Christ so they might say, you know, I didn't know that word that he used. I didn't quite follow the second point, and I don't know that point of application, but I am drawn in. I'm attracted to this kind of person. And I want to be just a little modest in my own fallen finite way—a glimmer of what Jesus himself is like.

Because I want to defiantly correct the deep, deep, deep intuition and reflex that people have that they can't approach Christ except at their best. And actually, the testimony of Scripture—and this is the way God is in the Old Testament prophets—is that He is drawn to us when we are at our lowest. So I just want to keep immersing people in that.

Speaker 3

It reminds me, we recently interviewed your dad and Ray. Your dad has this magnetic personality.

And I say magnetic because he's such a believer in people, and he pulls out and calls out the greatness in everybody that we met. He asked them questions.

Speaker 2

And I remember I felt a sense of warmth. I don't know if that was your experience growing up, and I don't know him obviously anywhere near like you did, but I felt just what you said. Drawn in.

Speaker 3

We're drawn to him like he speaks life everywhere he goes. And I think it's exactly what Jesus did.

Speaker 1

Amen.

Speaker 3

He could see this, but he still loved and wooed and called and pulled people toward him to the point. And of course, people were following him because who wouldn't want to follow that person?

Speaker 1

They did. Yeah. I mean, why is a sinful woman washing his feet with her hair when he's hanging out with all the religious PhDs of the day, all the impressive people?

But these are the people. The destitute, the outcasts, those who are at the end of their rope. In other words, really, we see ourselves all the time in these people.

They can't stay away. They find him irresistible. So praise God.

Speaker 2

Well, I'm sure you've heard the pushback. The pushback is, whoa, wait, we're supposed to fear God?

We should be afraid of Him. We should be afraid to be near His holiness because we are full of sin and we're dirty.

That's the God that I know, and that's who God is. What do you say to that?

Speaker 1

Well, that's a very understandable feeling. And actually, I believe that, bracketing out the gospel, that is true. I am a dirty, messy wretch. I'm a train wreck.

But then if you bring the gospel in, and the reason we have to go to church every week, the reason we have to read our Bible every day, is because we keep forgetting this. When you bring the gospel in, actually, you are told what you feel about your state of cleanliness, your state of being not guilty but acquitted and free to leave the courtroom. You don't feel that way.

But actually in the gospel, because of what Christ did, that is who you are. Therefore, it feels scandalous. But if you're in Christ, you're free to feel totally forgiven and stop. So that's very deeply against our intuitions, but it's gloriously true.

Speaker 3

Well, it reminds me of we recently interviewed a friend of yours, Sam Alberry.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And so we're going to have you listen to this clip of Sam, and we want you to respond to it.

Speaker 2

The flesh has its own fleshly way of dealing with the flesh. And we think, right, okay, I need to man up. I need to do the equivalent of gulping down some spiritual protein shakes and just kind of fight harder.

But Titus 2 says it is the grace of God that teaches us to say no to ungodliness. So the only way we can fight these very, very deep-seated impulses that we find within us is we need to keep receiving the grace of God.

Speaker 1

Amen. It takes a Bible to believe that because our own natural intuitions are. Yeah, I've screwed up. Okay, let me try to chip away this.

I love what Sam says there. We use the flesh to battle against our own felt fleshness. And we have a lot of the flesh going on, but actually we are softened and melted and lifted into change. We can white knuckle external behavioral change. I can cut carbs and get up earlier. I can make myself do it. But actually that's not changing me. That's just surface level. That's not from the inside out.

And what Sam is saying there is so wonderfully true. Actually, this is a sustainable Christian life. And if that is true, according to scripture, it's sustainable because actually the way I grow, the way I get traction, the way I move forward, the way I mortify sin, kill sin, kill the flesh is by receiving more deeply than I ever have the same gospel good news grace that got me in in the first place. Enjoying that more deeply, not graduating beyond it.

So Sam, amen.

Speaker 2

But what happens to us is, I think we all experience, is instead of running to the grace of God, instead of running to Jesus, we pull away. Cause we feel dirty.

I mean, I'll read you a quote from your book that I just. I read it out loud to Ann. You wrote in chapter two: "I think it is impossible for the affectionate heart of Christ to be over celebrated, made too much of, exaggerated. It cannot be plumbed, but it is easily neglected, forgotten. We draw too little strength from it."

And then you say this: "When Christ sees the fallenness of the world and its effect on his people, he moves toward that sin and suffering. He does not turn away from it."

And forever we've had the opposite picture. He turns away from me, and I sort of have to turn away from him sometimes. Like, wait, are you saying we can't over celebrate this? You are.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I believe what you just read because you wrote it. Yes. He says his heart is gentle and holy. His heart we know from the testimony of Old Testament and New. The heart is not anything frothy. It's not merely your emotional or affectional life. It's what pours out most deeply from your innermost core. And when Jesus tells us what his heart is, he says gentle and lowly.

Conclusion. We're never going to overstate the wondrous, endless patience and love of his heart. We will understate it. It's all we're ever doing. But we can't go beyond that ceiling. And again, this is consistent with the testimony of the Old Testament. The Lord, the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. Exodus 34, which is picked up time and again throughout the Old Testament. Not the God I think is naturally there, the Lord, the Lord, tepid and calculating in steadfast love. No.

So this is, as you say, Dave. We picture God as the photo negative of this. It feels very morally serious to make much of God's holiness and to sort of say, oh, hang on, tap the brakes on his grace. That feels right. Because we know way down deep we are guilty sinners, but actually we're dishonoring Christ. We're free to honor Christ by letting his forgiveness loom larger than all of our guilt, shame, and regret.

Speaker 2

And you know, as I'm listening, I'm thinking, well, the other side of that is if I celebrate it too much and even as a parent, if I'm only and all loving, my kids are going to run amok.

They're going to take advantage of me. They're going to break every law because Dad's going to forgive, Mom's going to forgive. It's no big deal.

God's the same way. So talk about that balance.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we do do that, don't we? But love in the Bible is not leniency. Love is not tolerance. Love is not looking the other way. Hebrews 12. God disciplines. That's a hard word for us. The Greek word paideia. It means training. God trains us, and that is at times painful.

He's pruning us. If we prune a branch, if that branch has any feelings, it's going to say ouch when that branch gets sliced off. But it's ultimately for longer-term flourishing. And God loves us too much to let us coast through life while he looks the other way and lets us remain the shallow, twaddling people we would all be if pain doesn't come into our lives.

He loves us enough to, in his tender, fatherly, sovereign way, send pain to help us to grow and deepen. So we just have to be sure what we mean by love. God's love in the Bible and our love for our own kids.

Speaker 3

Hey guys. We just wanted to take a quick minute to jump in and say, whatever you're going through today, I think this is important to remember you aren't alone.

And did you know that Dave and I have a team at Family Life today ready to pray for you? So if you need prayer, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. I really mean that. Head on over to familylife.com/prayforme. Again, that's familylife.com/prayforme and tell us how we can pray.

And again, we are not kidding. Dave and I have a prayer team specifically dedicated to praying for our listeners. I pray for some of these while I'm on my walks with God. I just pray. I will pray for you.

And Dave, you always fast on Fridays and that's when you pray.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I take the whole day and instead of eating food, I'm praying. And I'm praying for my family. But I'm also praying for you and your family. And isn't that a great thing to know that someone's praying for you?

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 2

And if it's not Ann and I praying for you, someone from our small prayer team will pray for you by name. We love to do it. So go to familylife.com prayforme and submit your request. And I mean do it right now. We would love to pray for you today.

Speaker 3

Dane. I'm curious. Talk about the Dane that is understanding this now like you are really understanding Jesus. His love, his grace, his gentleness, and his lowliness in comparison to what your life looked like before you had a deeper understanding of this.

And I'm guessing it could have on the outside looked similar. But talk about the difference for you. What's that meant for you?

Speaker 1

Yeah, you're so right, Ann. C.S. Lewis has a little essay, it's two pages called "Three Kinds of Men." He says there's three kinds of people in the world.

Number one, people who throw out all the rules and don't care they're breaking the law. They don't have any conscience, whatever.

Person number two: those who know they should fly, right? Those who know they should. Either they're trying to follow the Ten Commandments or their own conscience or whatever, but they do it like paying a tax, hoping there's enough left over for them to live on. So, all right, God, I know in the scripture you're telling me to do this, all right, I'll do it. But I hope there's enough for me to enjoy my life after I do all that he says.

Person number three: those who actually have collapsed into the delicious free fall of knowing that as they are yielding themselves to God, that actually that is their deepest joy. I've lived most of my life as person number two, and if I'm totally honest, that's who I still am. I can experience person number three for like 15-second blips at a time. Like we're enjoying it right now because we're talking about this. Fifteen seconds in an hour, I'll be right back in grumbling like the people of Israel.

So I got decent grades, I went to youth group, I went to a Christian college, I led Bible studies. The question isn't can you do certain things; the question is, can you enjoy God? And the way to enjoy him, actually to have fellowship, friendship with God, is to know his deepest heart. If we think that he's got a clipboard in his hand and he's taking notes on how we're doing, and there's the good side and the bad side, we'll see how it all ledgers out at the end. Forget it, that's not sustainable. You can't do that. You can only do that for a certain amount of time, and then you will crash and burn or give up the faith or something.

But what if, as we go stumbling our way through the Christian life, we are okay because at every point Christ's grip of us is stronger than our grip of him, and he's going to see us through? And as we fail, as we simply bring that failure to him afresh, his own deepest joy is to pull us into his heart all over again. That's a win-win.

Speaker 2

I'm just going to respond to that because I'm looking over at my wife and she's in tears again. Way to go, Dane. You got my wife crying again all during this interview and the previous one.

And let me ask you if this is why, because I'm thinking you've grown up so often in your life believing in a God who was all the things Dane just said, clipboard checking you off. You gotta measure up, gotta measure up.

And you're a, you came from the barrens. We are the best. So you don't just try to be.

Speaker 3

Good, you're a failure. If you are, you are the best.

Speaker 2

And so you often felt like you were failing God. And early in our marriage, we would have, I shouldn't have had a conflict with you about it. But I'm like, that's not who he is. He doesn't feel that way about you.

And I'm saying it just like this, like that sounds real loving, doesn't it? Come on, that's not who God is. I'm shaming her, trying to convince her that God's a loving God.

And I was always leaning more toward the love of God. You were more toward the law. Is that what's going on? You're sitting here going, oh, this is so beautiful, because it's so right.

Speaker 3

I think growing up, because of having to strive and to work, I felt like that's what God's like. He has this clipboard, exactly what you explained. I remember when we were in seminary, we were actually working with students, and someone gave us this idea to do, like, a visual prayer for these high school students. You actually led it. Dave and I had never done anything like that. It felt weird, but you said, "Close your eyes. I want you to picture Jesus, and I want you to stand before him."

In my imagination, as I'm picturing this, I was on my face before Jesus, and I had given my life to him. I had surrendered everything to him. I am a new creature in Christ. He dwells within me. However, I could not get off the floor in my mind before him because I felt so unworthy. I think so many of us feel like, even though we are new creatures in Christ, we have a sense of not measuring up and continuing to fail. Because of my past, having abuse in my background, I feel like I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy enough.

What’s happening is the Jesus I know now. I feel like I have been set free, but I lived under that yoke of trying, yearning, and striving, and it was so heavy. I love that Jesus offers us freedom, that he says, "Come up. You're my child. You're my daughter. I delight in you." I think it's a good reminder.

That's why, as people read your book, Dana, I feel like they will be set free into the true gospel. May it be. I hope so. I think they will.

Speaker 2

What do you say to Anne? What do you say to a person.

Speaker 1

Like, believing that a couple of things come to mind. One is, wow, you too. That's one thought that comes to mind. Another is, what do you guys think about this, what you just described, the inner psychology of what you just laid out?

Ann, I suspect, actually, I believe that's not unique to one kind of personality or one kind of upbringing. We might have an upbringing that exacerbates it, heightens it, makes it stronger, that law feeling. But I think that's in all of us. We all are born. One thing the Fall did, original sin. Is it entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God and of Christ.

One scripture that comes to mind is Saul being on the road persecuting Christians in Acts 9. And the risen Lord Jesus does not say to him as he knocks him on the ground lovingly, hey, dude, why are you persecuting believers? And he doesn't say, why are you persecuting my disciples? He says, why are you persecuting me?

The reason we can stand and look him in the face and actually be embraced by him is we are his own body parts. That's how he feels about us. If I stub my toe, I don't give it a pep talk. I want it to be healed and soothed and helped and tenderly cared for.

So even if it's our own sin and folly that we as Christ being the head, we're the body, Christ's own body parts. Even if it's our own sin and folly, as well as the affliction and suffering we've experienced at the hands of others, in either case, he wants us to be healed. We are his own body. That's very comforting.

Speaker 2

Well, you've been listening to Family Life Today. We're Dave and Ann Wilson.

And what a great conversation we had again with Dane Ortland about his book *Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers*.

And I tell you what, that last part there, I don't even. And I've never thought about that in my entire life before.

Speaker 3

It's just such. We know it, but when he says it, you begin to experience it and it begins to sink into your soul.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, it was a beautiful thought. It's a great way to go into today.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And tomorrow and this year.

Speaker 3

And you can get your copy now and just go online to family life today.com and you'll find the link in the show Notes, Notes. Or you can call us at 800-358-6329. That's 800F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today.

Speaker 2

And we'd love you to follow us on Instagram at Family Life Insta or on our Facebook.

We send out regular encouragement on marriage and parenting and stuff like this pretty much every single day.

So we want to help you, and that's where you can find us.

Speaker 3

And I'm excited because we get to talk to Dane one more day. So I hope you'll join us again tomorrow.

Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a Crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.