There are those that might consider this message, or future messages to be “too harsh.” Let me just say that when you are reading anything I write you should consider two things. Do you believe the Word of God to be 100% infallible and inerrant? If this answer to this question is “yes” and you believe the Bible to be truth, the next thing you should do is consider whether or not what I write lines up with the very scripture you believe to be truth. If the answer is “no,” then we have a serious problem and I expect to be confronted about it. If it is “yes”, then I am not being harsh, I am simply stating what ought to be said and perhaps you are used to hearing a sugar coating or watering-down of the gospel. I am not here to make up anything new, or invent some new understanding of the gospel but rather to preach it as it was meant to be preached, the way it was preached by Paul and the apostles, and the way it was preached by Jesus himself. I'm after truth and I pray that if I ever were to stray from that, I would immediately be confronted and restored lest I lead others astray.
I have recently been troubled by the apathetic and quite frankly lackadaisical approach to Christianity many professing Christians are taking. I have to be careful here because I don't intend on this being an "evidences of salvation" message which is what I will probably write on next week, but I do want people to have a proper view of what being a Christian really means.
For one reason or another, it seems many people have gotten the idea (whether they are consciously aware of it or not) that Christianity is about adding Jesus to their life instead of making Jesus their life. I don't even like saying it like that because true conversion is a supernatural work of God in which he makes you into a new creation, you do not make him into anything, I just hope you understand my illustration. Being a Christian isn't simply about “accepting Jesus” and then continuing to live the way you want to live and calling your life a “Christian” life because you "added" Jesus to it and open up your bible a couple times a week. Francis Chan provides a good description of this in his book Crazy Love, in which he states,
"Lukewarm people probably drink and swear less than average, but besides that, they really aren't very different from your typical unbeliever. They equate their partially sanitized lives with holiness, but they couldn't be more wrong...The Truth is, their lives wouldn't look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God" (78-79).
A Christian life produces fruit, a Christian life is engaged in battle against the god of this world (satan), a Christian life participates in, engages in, and experiences the three parts of this message I am about to lay out that clearly show Christianity is not a game. Honestly I think a big part of the problem is the improper view people have of Christ. I once heard R.C. Sproul say that, "Jesus was not executed for saying, 'Consider the dandelions...how they grow! Jesus was executed for saying, 'Consider the thieves...how they steal.'" Too many people think Christianity is about some warm fuzzy feeling you get while skipping through fields of dandelions.
As I said, I will be presenting three biblical reasons dispelling the myth many have of Christianity being a "game," a "fuzzy feeling," or whatever else. These three parts could easily be separated and expounded upon to make up a series of sermons but for the sake/purposes of this blog I will condense them into one message (some of you will laugh at me saying I have “condensed” it when you realize how much you'll be reading to finish this!).
3 (not all) parts of Christianity
I. Self-Denial
II. War/Sin (Can be both separate and conjoined as there is a war on sin)
III. Discipline/Testing (From God)
I. Self-Denial
I'm sure many of you know where I'm going to go with this one and for good reason, it's one of if not the best passages regarding this topic. In Matthew 16:24-25 Jesus says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." This is a regular teaching of Jesus and is repeated in all the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke). Let's examine this verse for a second. The first thing Jesus says is to deny yourself. This means leaving behind all of your fleshly desires, all of your selfish desires, and anything that might hinder you from pursuing Christ and his will. It's about laying down your own will and inquiring of God what his will for your life would be, realizing that it is no longer you who live but Christ who lives within you. (Gal 2:20). It does not mean that everyone has to sell all their belongings, give up everything you own, and cease doing all the activities you love. However you should be willing to give up anything at any moment if Jesus were to ask of it. Anything in your life that you would not give up for Christ is an idol and we know that idol worshipers will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. I could write so much about this as there are many scriptures that help to illustrate this such as Matthew 13:46 where the kingdom of heaven is described as a pearl of great value, so great that a man sold all that he had in order to buy it. In essence he rid himself of everything he owned for that which is much greater. Or in Luke 18:22 where Jesus tells a man inquiring of what he must do in order to inherit eternal life, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But after Jesus had said this Luke records that the man, "became very sad, for he was extremely rich." You see, he wasn't willing to deny himself of his earthly wealth and luxuries, which by the way have zero eternal significance except for an eternity in hell should you be ensnared by such things.
The next thing Jesus says after instructing us to deny ourselves is to pick up our crosses and follow him. Now let me make one thing clear, by "picking up our cross," Jesus does not mean that everyone has their own sort of figurative "cross" to bear. Some people think their job, their mother-in-law, their kids, their disease, or their husband/wife is the "cross" they have been given to bear in this life. That is not what Jesus is saying here. What he's saying is, "If you want to be called my disciples, you better be willing to die." Now I know many of you reading this just jumped back in your seats or started shaking your heads in disbelief. Notice I did not say that to be a Christian you must die or that every Christian will be called to die for their belief and that if you do not you are not a Christian. What I am saying, and what Jesus said, is that should you be called to die for the gospel, you must be willing. John MacArthur describes this passage by saying, "He was demanding total commitment from them--even unto physical death--and making this call to full surrender a part of the message they were to proclaim to others." Does this part of Christianity sound like a game to you? Does it create a warm-fuzzy feeling inside? We do not know what our lot in this life is. Some Christians God raises up into great places for his glory, sort of like what he did to Joseph. Others are called to die for the name of Christ, sort of like Stephen, the first Christian martyr. We have to be willing to accept whatever lot God has given us, knowing that regardless of what it is, it is for the glory of God, and while we may not see the initial reason for what that lot may be, we know that somehow, some way, God has ordained it that he may be glorified.
II. War/Sin
These two can be separated or be put together. For example, we are at war everyday (more on this in a second) and we have to deal with sin until Christ returns, but we can also take up war against the sin in our own lives.
My scriptural basis for this section about war (or battle) comes from Ephesians 6:12 which states, "For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens," and also from 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." Of course there are many other usable scriptures for this but I'm trying my best not to make this into a book.
I used that passage from Ephesians because I cant just tell you that we are at war without telling you what we are at war against. God has ordained satan to have have rule over this world for the time being (though not ultimate authority as God is still sovereign and satan can do nothing without God allowing it to happen). Of course we know that this will come to an end but for now satan is the god of this world who "has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Cor 4:4 We are at war every single day to, "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2. Part of this war is fighting against the culture that tries to sweep us up to be just like everybody else. The culture will tell you that it's ok to have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend because everybody is doing it, it's ok to be promiscuous. The culture will tell you that lying is fine if it means you get that promotion, that pay raise, that A on your test, or even for some "greater good." The culture will tell you that sensual dressing is fine. The culture will tell you to do whatever pleases you, whatever you need to do in order to make it to the top, you really can be your own god! But we know that intercourse outside of marriage is abominable to God, lying is still a sin no matter what and God does not need your lie to accomplish his will no matter what "greater good" you think you are attaining, sensual dressing causes lust which is a sin, and pursuing all of your own goals without ever consulting God, without a care for if he approves is essentially self-worship, also abominable to our perfect, holy, righteous, and just, God. But these things are all around us every single day, satan has influenced every part of this world, you see it in the movies, you hear it on the radio, you drive past the billboards, and worst of all... sometimes you hear it from the pulpit.
We are called above such things, we are called to abstain from a mixing-in with the culture. We are to be in this world but we are not of this world. If we are to profess to be Christians we should not act like the world, talk like the world, think like the world, or smell like the world. I am not saying we should completely remove ourselves from those who are among the lost around us, our friends, our teachers, and our family. I'm saying we need to separate ourselves from the things they do and pursue holiness.
If we find ourselves blending into the culture or the ways of the world we will also find ourselves slipping into sin and doing the things we ought not to do. Paul was very familiar with this struggle in one of the most profound passages of scripture where he states, "For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me." (Romans 7: 18-19) Needless to say, it's no easy task to keep out of sin, to keep from doing the things we do not want to do, it's a constant battle, a constant fight, all taking place in the spiritual war that is this world until the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. However we have been given a weapon to fight this spiritual warfare and this weapon is the Word of God. "Take up the sword of the Spirit which is God's word." Eph 6:17 Let me ask you a question, what did Jesus do every time he was tempted by satan during his 40 days in the wilderness? He quoted scripture. He began each response to satan with "It is written..." This is why it's so important to stay in the word. If you have no knowledge of scripture, if you never read, then you have nothing to use to fight. You are essentially going to war while voluntarily disarming yourself, that doesn't sound smart now does it? It's not, it's dumb. You may as well throw in the towel because you're going to submit to sin every single time if your foundation is not on the word of God. Not only that but you're not going to have any true knowledge as to who God his, how perfectly holy, just, and righteous he is. How much he despises and hates sin. If you fear God and you realize how utterly disgusted he is by sin, you are much less likely to commit sin. I was going to write more about this but I'm already going too-long so I'll continue on to the final point.
III. Discipline/Testing
Without getting into too much, let me just say that the Christian life involves God refining his children so that they may be conformed to his image. God does some of this refining via discipline and testing. Look at Zec 13:9 "I will put this third through the fire; I will refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say: They are my people and they will say: THe LORD is our God." And just so you don't think this is only some old-testament concept, let's flip to 1 Pet 4:12, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." The truth is, scripture has many instances describing the testing of believers. God does not test you so that he can know if you are in the faith because he already knows, God knows all. He tests you in order that you might realize your faith is strong, that you can be assured of your salvation.
If you have not experienced trials, discipline, or persecution as a Christian, I would do a self examination of your heart to see where it is at, and more importantly, to whom does it belong? Because God is not going to convert you and then simply leave you alone, for we know that "He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Phil 1:6 on the contrary he will be disciplining you just as a father disciplines his child. God is not a derelict father and he will not allow you to wander off in pursuit of everything that shines. Just as a father invokes discipline upon his son to correct bad behavior, or even certain inadequacies, so the Lord will do to his children out of love. As a Christian you should never expect a smooth ride, there's going to be several bumps along the way, not just from sin, not just from satan, but also from God who tests and refines those who are his that they may be likened to himself, growing in holiness and understanding, and ultimately bringing him glory. You see, when your various trials are completed, you will often realize that you learned a great deal and grew significantly closer to the Lord. It is then that you will say in accordance with James, "Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, but endurance must do its completed work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:2-4 and also with Paul, "And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope does not dissapoint, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Romans 5:3-5. Sometimes we are brought to our knees, just know that even on your knees it is not too late to look up. And if trial, pain, persecution, loss, tragedy, discipline, etc, ever brings you in closer relationship to the Lord, then you better believe it was worth every second. Just ask Paul who said, “I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Phil 3:8 So no brethren...we were never promised a smooth ride as Christians, just a safe landing.
I hope we can all agree that affliction, pain, testing, discipline, war, strife, trials, testing, persecution, potential of death, pain, loss, tragedy, self denial, etc, are not characteristics of a "game," or a "warm fuzzy feeling." I am not saying we cannot enjoy things in our lives that have been given to us and meant to be enjoyed, I'm just saying as a Christian don't expect your entire life to be a box of chocolates, be ready to fight, and if necessary, even die.
-Chris
*All scripture was taken from either the ESV or HCSB*
**Will be back to edit later**
No comments:
Post a Comment