 Media
So last week I mentioned I might go ahead and deal with the show The Chosen in this week’s blog. I want to say up front that I have not watched very much of the show. Most of my points will be about broader aspects of our media consumption than just this one show. But I did watch a few episodes of the first season when it came out and I will be responding to that portion. My final caveat will be that I watched those episodes about two years ago and so I could be fuzzy on some details. I also want to point out that believers ought to be producing the best art, music, and stories. This is because we know the creator and author of everything good, true and beautiful. The assumption that Christian content must be cheesy and pedantic should not be the reality especially in a free for all to play content culture like we have today. The Second Commandment The first issue I must take with this show is simply that there is a depiction of Jesus. Of course this depends on your view of what constitutes breaking the second commandment. In Exodus 20:4-6, God commands His people not to make any image to be worshiped. Of course no one is claiming that the show is supposed to be worshiped, but Jesus should be worshiped and He is the one being portrayed in the show. I don’t want to bind anyone else’s conscience if you are not compelled by this point, however, I want to make clear that we should consider the fact that the Bible seems to work hard to not tell us anything about what Jesus looked like. I think if God had wanted us to depict Jesus in any form of art it is reasonable to think that we would have been given some instruction as to what He looked like. This point goes far beyond just The Chosen, because many movies, films, and other artistic portrayals have been made even with the best of evangelistic intentions. This seems at best an area where we should be careful to not flaunt Christian freedom to the point of rebellious antinomianism. Artistic License The second and for me far more concerning issue that I have with this show is the use of artistic license. We should never put words in the mouth of God that He has not said. Scripture is the only place that we have the revelation of God. To claim any kind of extra biblical revelation is to claim the very authority of God on those words and so if they are not from God those words are false prophecy and desire execution. I’m sure that the writers and producers of the show would point out that they are not claiming their artistic dialogue or scenes are revelation. However, they are still proposing these scenes and words as if they are a part of the revelation of God. I have heard many people say that the show helps the Bible come alive or that it makes it more real. But what is being made more real for you? The truth in Scripture or the made up musings of the creators and writers? Another problem is that this is not good for the non bible reader because they are not going to know where the truth ends and the artistic license begins. What I am saying is that if you are a well versed enough student of the Scriptures to dissect the truth from the additions then you probably don’t need this media. On the other hand, if someone needs this show to get them into the Bible then they are probably in great danger of being misled by the additional content not found in the Bible. The Scripture doesn’t deal kindly with additions or subtractions. (Deuteronomy 12:32; Revelation 22:18) The Creators Finally, while the audience for the Chosen is probably the widest part of evangelicalism the creators are a mixture of evangelicals, Orthodocs Jews, and Mormons. This is far beyond the kind of denominational partnerships that we might have to share the gospel with our Bible believing Christians. This is partnering with those who believe in a different God, a different gospel and a different Jesus to supposedly tell the story of Jesus! This kind of ecumenism seems neither safe nor wise in regards to Biblical fidelity or gospel clarity. Before you watch another episode of the Chosen, hear what the creators themselves have said here and here. In this post it is not my desire to make law or bind the conscience of other Christians, only to think faithfully and Biblically about these important issues. Soli Deo Gloria!
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 Not that Chosen
You may have seen the title of this blog and thought I was going to write about the show “The Chosen” but that is not the focus of this post. (Maybe next week!) Rather I am going to talk about what can be an even more controversial issue: the doctrine of election! I believe that this doctrine is only controversial because it is so offensive to human pride. It is also because, as fallen creatures, we often have a view of God and His character that is formed more by our own finite basis than by fidelity to the revelation of God in the Scriptures! Chosen in the Old Testament God’s people have always been a chosen people. In the Old Covenant, God’s chosen people were the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob even though God did graciously save gentiles who were saved in the covenant chosen people. People such as Rahab and Ruth are examples of gentiles who were chosen by God and providentially brought into God’s covenant people. These women were chosen individually out of all the other Gentiles, but they were also corporately included in the covenant people of Israel. It is important that we realize that from Adam forward the only true people of God have been believers. No one, whether of Hebrew or Gentile descent, has been saved apart from the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Even under the Old Covenant, the redeemed people were the believers. Chosen in Christ In the New Covenant, God’s people are also chosen but no longer is the identification made with Israel, but with Christ. Not all those of Hebrew descent are the true Israel (Romans 9:6-7). The true Israel is the true Son, Jesus. Most people want to place God’s election in a passive state and man’s free will in the active state as definitive in the individual's conversion and regeneration. However, passive election would not be election at all. God is the active elector. Men are bound in sin and are thus free only to do what is dictated by our own sinful state until we are rescued and set free by God’s grace. The argument that I want to make today is that election is the only way for anyone to be saved. Sovereign election is the only way for the new covenant to actually work and genuinely save anyone. This is because the new covenant is not a simple offer of salvation, but rather the accomplishment of salvation for all the elect. The New Covenant has already been established and is in effect. For a covenant to be entered synergistically that covenant must be ratified and placed in effect after the mutually sovereign parties have both agreed and consented to the arrangement. But the covenant whereby fallen sinners are regenerated and redeemed by grace alone through faith alone was conceived before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) and promised immediately after the fallen in the judgment upon the serpent (Genesis 3:15) and again to Abraham when he was called to follow God’s promise away from his family and homeland (Genesis 12:1-3). Oftentimes people will argue that the use of election in the Scripture is referring to corporate election. This means that the election was of Israel in the Old Testament and Christ in the New Testament so anyone who does what is necessary to belong to those groups is included because God chose the group, not the individuals making up the group. But corporate election depends on the election of individuals, because God is not only sovereign over the ends and results, but also He providentially reigns over the means by which all things happen. Of course, God chose Israel in the Old Covenant and Christ in the New Covenant but in choosing them He sovereignly also chose those who make up those groups. In the passage already referred to above in Ephesians 1, Paul states that God chose us in Christ! Meaning that God chose us as the individual believers who would be in Christ and therefore receive the benefits of union with Christ. This election is consistent with the command upon all men to repent and believe this good news that God saves everyone who calls on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13).  Enjoy
The catechism question states that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Enjoy! We are designed to enjoy God. We are by nature pleasure seekers and by sinful nature, sinful in the seeking of pleasure. Our souls are never satisfied with just existing we must be enjoying. All around us we see the effects of this dissatisfaction in the pain and problems found in many of our most pressing social ills. Why is there a drug problem, a divorce problem, a gender confusion problem or almost any other problem you can imagine? It is because we must be satisfied! Worship In Psalm 103, David begins by calling us to worship God. He says “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” Now I am sure that we have all read and sung these words many times but David is going somewhere with this call to worship. We are told that we should, while worshiping, not forget all His benefits. Among these benefits are forgiveness of sins, healing of diseases, redemption from the pit, crowns of steadfast love and mercy, AND satisfaction with good so that your youth is renewed. This last point is the one I would like to focus on. As we battle against sin and the devastating effects of sin in the world it is easy to begin to get discouraged. Sometimes it is possible while trying to practice both practically and spiritually the ‘right’ things but still not be able to experience the growth and victory over sin that we would like. At the risk of sounding “Piper-esc,” David tells us that we are to remember that Yahweh satisfies us. In our struggle against sin it is satisfaction that is what we are seeking. We are seeking to satisfy our design to enjoy something, and David is saying enjoy God. Remember He satisfies! The Fountain of Youth What is also remarkable is that this satisfaction brings renewal and even youth. For ages people have been seeking the fountain of youth and our culture seeks every way possible to monetize this pursuit. We can probably all think of examples of people, probably middle aged men (and some women), doing absolutely ridiculous things to try to recapture their youth but here David has the answer! Worship! That’s it, worship God! Bless the LORD, O my soul! This actually does two things for us. First worship gives a weapon with which to fight sin. In Ephesians 6, Paul tells us that we have the sword of the Spirit which is the word of truth. This offensive weapon can be and should be used to kill sin. But how? How do we wield this mighty weapon? Is there a class somewhere on Bible fencing? One way to use the sword is to take the word of God and direct it to Him in praise and adoration. Use the very words of this Psalm and begin even now to praise His name. With all that is in you bless His holy name! Just as David does in this psalm remember the great things that God has done and preach the gospel to yourself from all of scripture as you glorify God. This leads into the second thing that this worship does for us. It gives us a final and sufficient end to our quest for satisfaction. God is perfect and everything He does is perfect and so this is the way to perfect satisfaction. The problem with all the imitation ways of satisfying our souls is that they do not work. They may appear to work for a little while, but they do not keep working. But when we begin to find our satisfaction in the One whom we were designed to be satisfied with then we are finally and fully satisfied with enjoying Him forever. David goes on in the Psalm to lay out the bigness of God, the lowliness of man, the greatness of divine love and the precious hope for God’s people. In verse 20, he writes “Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do His word, obeying the voice of His word!” Defeating sin is hard and the fight for joy is a real fight but the way to fight is to worship. Pitying yourself over your deplorable condition and wallowing in your sins will never give you success in destroying the sin in your own self or the temptations of your great enemy. Rather turn from your sin and worship the true King who loves you!  Seeking
What do you want? That is a pretty simple question but it is also an extremely profound one. Often we are convinced that there must be divergence between what we want and what we need or should want. Of course, that could be the case, but maybe the issue is that we are looking for the right thing in the wrong way or place. Kind of like the old country song, we are looking for love in all the wrong places. My point is that our problem might not be in our appetite, but in the food we are using to satisfy it. As a matter of fact, food is probably a good analogy for this because often when we are craving unhealthy foods it is actually something in those foods that we truly do need that is amplifying that craving. So we need to pay close attention to what we are after. The problem with many pursuits is that we might succeed. Like a dog chasing a car the real trouble starts when we catch it. Desire Desire is at the heart of what drives us in life. In many ways discipline and maturity are simply about using our desires to serve us rather than us serving them. When we are ignorant or immature we will be driven around by our desires and tossed around by every new idea (Ephesians 4:14). In this state, our desires may not even be wrong but they are in the wrong place. Desire is a motivator not a director and when we get the fire of desire in the wrong seat we have trouble. However, desire can also be a blessing when it is in the proper role of motivation. Paul speaks of his desire for the salvation of Israel as not only motivating his evangelisitc efforts toward them (Romans 10:1) but also his apostolic enterprise among the gentiles (Romans 11:13-14). Also, remember that Paul refers to the desire or aspiration to become an overseer (pastor) as a good thing (1 Timothy 3:1). Even more powerful is that God desires the salvation of sinners (1 Timothy 2:3-4). Clearly the distinction between righteous desires and sinful ones is two fold. First, is the thing desired good or evil and second, are we seeking the good thing in a godly manner? Contentment Ultimately, we all want to be content. Contentment does not mean complacent or without goals, hopes or dreams but it does mean satisfied. This satisfaction is grounded in our trust in God’s sovereign will. If we genuinely trust God’s purpose is right then we can be satisfied with where we are and where we are going even without the full itinerary. Also at the root of this contentment is our grateful reception of God’s good gifts. If we are constantly comparing what God has given others to what we have or experience then we will be overcome by greed and envy. Instead, believers should always trust that God’s gifts are ideal for us as we are where we are (James 1:17). As we trust in both God’s purpose and gifts we can know as believers that His providential provision is not only enough but far more than just enough in Christ Jesus our Lord (Philippians 4:10-13)!  Relationships
What defines a relationship? For some, it means having a common interest such as a friendship around a hobby or sport. Other relationships are built around common responsibilities such as the same workplace or career field. All relationships are defined by some sort of interaction between two or more parties. Whatever facilitates this interaction is at the very heart of what it means to be in that relationship. All of us are in multiple relationships with different people that are cultivated around different parts of our lives. In the modern Western World, we are especially good at compartmentalizing our lives around these particular relationships. While these relationships can have wonderful and important meaning in our lives there are dangers that accompany this kind of compartmentalization. One of the dangers that comes along with this kind of disconnection in the different spheres of our lives is the danger that we will live according to contrary sets of values in these different facets of our lives. It is even true that we may be tempted to so greatly separate these parts of our lives that we lose a sense of commitment and fidelity when we move from one part to the other part. No doubt many people who have been caught in adulterous affairs have done so because they have become accustomed to the disconnection between their work life, recreational life, and home life. This is not an excuse for this wicked sin, but it does help us to understand the dangers of not having a holistic understanding of who we are as people made in God's image in relationships with other people made in God's image in every part of our lives. Unequal In 2 Chronicles 19:2, King Jehoshaphat is chastised by the prophet for his partnership with God’s enemies. At this point Israel was ruled by evil kings and Jehoshaphat had been their friend. Jehoshaphat was in some ways a good king attempting to follow Yahweh, but how could he be a follower of Yahweh and yet in partnership with God's enemies? The reality is we cannot be sometimes for God and at other times against God because of the circumstances of that particular realm. If we are truly going to follow the Lord with all of our strength, if we are truly going to serve Him with all of our mind, if we are truly going to love Him with all of our heart, then we must give Him all of our devotion. We must not hold back any area or any compartment for His enemies. The Apostle Paul also states that there is no way that the Christian or the church can be partnering with idols or unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). Satan and demons and idols are God's enemies; our desire is to destroy them, not to partner with them. And the unbelievers are the ones that we desire to reach. They are the mission field, the ones to whom we must be proclaiming the glorious good news of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ. Light and darkness are not in partnership but rather distinction. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he had already warned them that bad company corrupts good character (1 Corinthians 15:33). This is also a pattern seen in the Old Testament that the partnerships and even marriages of God’s people with those who served the false gods led away the hearts of Israel into idolatry. Christians also must realize that to think that we are strong enough to manage and not get pulled toward idolatry by ungodly partnerships is not a sign of maturity, but rather hubris. We must be humble enough to know that this is exactly the kind of attack that our enemy would use to cause us to stumble and fall. Fellowship Instead, God has called His people to center their lives around the fellowship of His people. This starts with our own homes. The Christian home ought to be a gospel saturated home where scripture informs all of the life of the family and prayer is the regular response in times of both joyous praise and fervent petition. Along with this kind of soul filling home life God intends for all Christian to regularly enjoy the fellowship of the saints in the local church meeting. For far too long we have made the church meeting about your individual worship and experience of God. However the church is by definition a gathering together of Christians to enjoy the life and fellowship of all the saints (Hebrews 10:24-25).  This will be the last week of this series and I have saved possibly the most popular category for last. When I was younger this seemed to be presented as a real possibility. But as with the casual Christian I don’t think that this is really possible. The most basic definition of what is a true Christian is someone who has been born again to spiritual life. That means that the most basic reality of being a genuine follower of Jesus Christ and true child of God is that you are no longer a merely carnal (physical) personal but a truly spiritual person. And that is why:
I don’t want to be a carnal Christian. The idea of the carnal Christian is someone who has the spiritual life from God in them, but continues to live the same carnal, fleshly life that they lived before. (Now, I am not saying that this is reality but it is the claim.) By using the terms carnal and fleshly, I mean a life that is focused on the temporal not the eternal, the physical not the spiritual, the sensual not the holy. Of course the problem is self-evident that the Christian can not continue to be merely carnal. We are still people with real bodies but not bodies. We are no longer just body and mind but we are people with a living spirit. We are also people indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The reality that we have spiritual life and are in real relationship and fellowship with the Holy Spirit should cause us to at least question the idea of so-called carnal Christianity. I believe that the idea of carnal Christianity comes from a fundamental misinterpretation of a couple of Paul’s letters. First, in Romans 7:14 in the ESV, Paul refers to the law being spiritual but himself as ‘of the flesh’. In the KJV, flesh is rendered carnal. No Bible interpreters have wrestled with whether Paul is talking about a person before being saved or the struggle on going in the believer between the old sin nature or the new nature. Personally in the context of what Paul has been discussing in the sixth chapter and how he refers to himself I interpret this as in reference to the believer’s war against sin. But even with that interpretation, Paul’s point is clear that the Christian is not peacefully living in a life of carnality, but rather battling against it by the Spirit. The following chapter is possibly the most victorious text in all of the Bible. The second text and probably the one even more likely to be sighted by someone who would argue for the validity of carnal Christianity is in 1 Corinthians 3. In this passage, Paul refers to the Corinthians as “carnal” in the KJV, and again “of the flesh” in the ESV. And Paul does say that they are mere infants in Christ. This is not a stamp of approval, but rather, a criticism of their spiritual immaturity. I think Paul’s point is that observing the way they are acting, they are at best baby Christians, if they prove to be Christians at all. Paul goes on to point to the revelation of what is real at the judgment of Christ later in the passage. Once again, this is not an endorsement of carnal living. However, I do believe that Christians should be spiritually fleshly, meaning that we should be thankful for the bodies and provision for these bodies that we have received from the Lord. Also we should be seeking to honor God in our bodies and with our bodies. As well the physical world and this current environment belongs to the Lord and it all exists to display His beauty and His glory and so it should be stewarded toward that end in every possible way. So as spiritual people we ought to desire to live lives that demonstrate in the physical world what is true of us spiritually. No, I don’t want to be a carnal Christian. Rather, I want to be a Christian with no adjective nor qualifier, just a real, genuine Christian known for the fact that I have a covenantal relationship with Jesus and His people (Acts 4:13)!  Last week, I wrote about not wanting to be a casual Christian. The reality is I don’t believe that a casual Christian is even a real thing. This week’s category might end up hitting a little closer to home. Because although it shouldn’t be a thing, it is a sin that lurks at the door of all our hearts.
I don’t want to be a critical Christian. I know that after saying what I said last week I may sound like I believe I have the ability to judge other people's hearts, but I do not. I can only consider their confession and their fruit. But I can judge my heart and I am asserting that I don’t want to be this kind of Christian. One that lives inconsistently with the things I claim to believe. At the heart of the oxymoron of critical Christianity is the deceitful scheming of human pride. This pride can rear its ugly head in many different ways. The most obvious is the Christian braggart. This is the professing believer that is always the hero boasting of grand successes and achievements. This kind of Christian is very practical and pragmatic and loves comparisons. The second and even more prevalent type of critical Christian is the believer that has been puffed with pride usually brought on by an excess of knowledge or experiences. This kind of Christian can and will always find fault in the confessions, convictions, or counsel of other believers. Or this person may always be holding other believers to the standard of their own spiritual experiences instead of the objective truth of God revealed in His Word. Given these two different ways that this tends to happen it is not just the problem for those other Christians. The more bookish and intellectual types may be more vulnerable to the pride of excessive knowledge. While the more charismatic believers may be more vulnerable to the boasting of ecstatic experiences. But the reality is that we all must be on guard against this satanic scheme. The last and most subtle kind of critical Christian is the self abasing complainer. This is the person who is so depressed and despairing because they perceive their experience in life to be unfair or undeserved. This causes them to disregard the real grace and mercy that God continues to lavish on them. Worst of all this person is offended by the grace and favor that God seems to pour out on other people. Therefore, this believer is likely to doubt God’s providence or His merciful benevolence. But notice that the problem isn’t anything God has done but arrogance of the inverted pride that they have believed. If the good news I believe is essentially that I have received grace and mercy undeserved and unmerited then I want to give that same grace and mercy to those I see and know. We repentant sinners ought to be able to admit and acknowledge sin in and to one another while also extending forgiveness to one another for Christ’s sake. I want to be careful that I am not becoming the judge of someone else’s servant (Romans 14:4). I want to guard my heart against becoming an accuser of the brethren, remember that job is already taken and the pay is terrible (Rev. 12:10). I want to live in peace with all men as long as it depends on my actions and attitudes. No, I don’t want to be a critical Christian.  I don’t want to be a Christian…
Maybe I need to explain this statement. Over the next three weeks I want to address three different categories of modern religious experience that we should not want to be. I do not want to imply that I believe that there are different kinds of Christians, but there are those who are labeled as “Christians” but the fruit of faithful obedience is lacking from those lives. None of us should want to be a fruitless Christian. I don’t want to be a casual Christian. The casual Christian is something that I simply do not understand. Christianity is built on the reality that there is a just, holy, sovereign, and loving God who has made everything and everyone for His own glory. Furthermore, human beings who have been created in His image have rebelled against His character and become sinners deserving of punishment with an infinite debt of transgression and iniquity. However, this God who is both just and gracious has chosen to save sinners through His own sacrifice to pay the penalty for their sin. The Father gave His Son the Lord Jesus Christ to pay the sin debt for every person who will believe. So it makes sense to me that a person who doesn’t believe this is true would go on about their life being unaffected by the wonder of what has been done, because to them it is but a fairytale or myth. The lost sinner still captive to their depravity and dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) is as responsive to the things of God as a corpse at a rock concert. No matter how loud or exciting the entertainment is, this one is dead. Hearts of stone are hard by virtue of their being and so the sinner is hardened to the truth and beauty of the gospel. One final analogy: the blind person is unaffected by the transcendent beauty of both the mountains and beach because they can’t see the obvious glory. Also, it makes sense to me that someone who does believe this good news would be not only ready and willing, but compelled, to give their life to the purposes of glorifying and proclaiming this to the nations. When I read the accounts of heroes of the faith from former times I am amazed at the providence of God. However, the obedience of believers ought not to amaze us. The reason is that they believed. We should expect incredible sacrifice from people who truly believe in the loving and sovereign God described and communicated to us in the Scriptures. The efforts and exploits of these courageous saints are the natural consequences of real faith. The Apostles, the early church fathers, the Lollards, the reformers, the puritans, and the early leaders of the modern missionary movement are all examples of Christians who were not extremists but rather simply genuine believers. The only position that simply does not make sense is the one that seems to be the most common one expressed around me. The person who affirms that these things are true but seems to be unaffected in either passion or action. How can we be truly convinced of the amazing and miraculous accounts in the Bible and yet face our world in purely materialistic terms? How can we believe in the mercy, love, and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet engage our world with such indifference? How can we be filled with the Holy Spirit and experience the peace and joy of the Lord without that affecting our whole life? Casual is defined as something happening by chance or without definite or serious intention. So if our Christianity is casual, then it is just happenstance and definitely not serious. But no one could honestly read the Bible and come away believing that the faith in the sacred text could be described as casual. No, I don’t want to be a casual Christian.  Stamina
Last week, I reflected on the frantic pace of our modern lives. Living in the fast lane also means that everyday requires enormous amounts of energy. But it is not enough just to have intermittent bursts of dynamic output. We must continue to put out energy day after day. This reminds me of the Energizer battery commercials. The mascot electric bunny just keeps going and going and going because he has the right power source. The secret to having stamina over the long term is really about finding that pace that we talked about last week. But, over time that pace can and should increase as we get into shape. Stamina is not a weekend project, but rather, the result of incremental changes over the long term. This is not only true in regard to our bodies and our schedules but also our spiritual walk. Power I’m sure that most of us can point to mountain top spiritual experiences in our lives when God caused us to grow in dramatic ways almost overnight. However, the testimony of Scripture and the path of experience have taught me that spiritual growth and vitality come through daily discipline in the means of grace that God has given to us. Even the Lord Jesus told us to take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23). There is no path to experiencing and knowing the truly all powerful God apart from His prescribed means. So what are these means? First of course is that we need to avail ourselves of His communication to us. God has revealed Himself to us in the person of the Lord Jesus and we find this revelation in the Scriptures. That’s a long way of saying read and study your Bible. Second, we must be people of prayer. I know the busier and less energetic we feel makes us think that we do not have the time or strength to pray. But when we are busy and tired is when we most need to turn to God and cast our burdens on Him (1 Peter 5:7). Third, we need to go to church. In this one many means are bundled together. We need to hear the word of God explained and exposited for us. We also need to be exhorted and spurred on toward obedience. We also need to be encouraged and comforted by the loving relationships we have with our local church family. We also need to be nourished spiritually when eating the Lord’s Supper as well as physically breaking bread in fellowship with our brethren in the church. We need to hear testimonies and witness baptisms and experience the fullness of church life with God’s covenant people. Only when we are using God’s provide means can we expect God’s promised provision. Scripture, supplication, and saints are at the heart of God’s good gifts given to us to participate in the grace that we have in Jesus Christ. Rest God ultimately gives us rest! Rest is what God promised His people. This is not lounging around on the beach but rather the rest of the need to earn God’s favor. In the days of the Old Covenant what was proved conclusively is that fallen man cannot and will not achieve righteousness according to the law. But God has promised rest for everyone who will cease their pitiful working and trust solely in Jesus Christ as our only righteousness (Hebrews 4:1-13).  The Fast Lane
These days it is not uncommon for most of us to feel like our lives are moving at a frantic pace. This seems almost ironic coming from the pastor of a rural church in a small county in Arkansas, but gone are the days of slow country life. Please don’t misunderstand. I'm sure that the hustle and bustle of the big city is far worse than it is around these parts. However, the interconnectivity of our lives whether we are in downtown Manhattan or way out in Wyoming has meant that most of us are dealing with more information, decisions, and demands than ever before. Maybe this is just the inevitable march of progress that brings a quickening of our steps as we proceed through the adventurous future. It is rather ironic that most of the time saving and productivity improving technology have actually led us to have busier lives than our hard working and hard living ancestors. The Sprint The problem with going all out is that no one can sustain maximum effort forever. Sprinters clearly run faster than endurance runners but they could not keep that up for the duration of a marathon. Our modern age seems to have drawn us onto a hectic schedule that is difficult if not impossible to maintain over a lifetime. It is also possible that our insatiable appetite for youth has caused us to miss the natural and God ordained rhythms of life that come with different stages. For example, parents with young children and still growing families are in a different segment of life than parents of teenagers or even empty nesters. So often we seem to be trying to form all of society into a common mold where not everyone fits. This is particularly dangerous because many well intentioned believers, especially pastors, will burn out trying to keep up the pace. Or…. even more tragically, many Christians even pastors, may blow up their relationships, ministries, or local churches trying to prod more complacent believers into their olympic pace. The Long Way The reality is that often the better way is the longer way. I mean that it maybe to the advantage of both our current race (our earthly life) and the Kingdom of God for us to keep after the hard slow work of cultivating fallow ground, sowing good seed, and watering in faith knowing that in His season God will bring the growth (1 Corinthians 3:5-9). My point is that we need to find a pace that we can run at that matches our stamina so that we can stay in the race as we press on toward the goal of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Philippians 3:12-16). In this text Paul explains that this kind of forward progress is a mark of spiritual maturity among the servants of God. I do not mean that we are not supposed to be persuasive in evangelism or fervent in prayer or compassionate in our fellowship or passionate in our preaching or diligent in our studies. But I do mean that as we endeavor in all these important areas we must be mature and walking in the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-24). Our lives must reflect love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. Nothing that we do apart from the working of the Holy Spirit will ever be of any spiritual benefit to us or to Christ’s church. Keep Going So what now? We all need to find our pace and keep going. It’s not ok to sit it out and just wait for heaven. We must be actively seeking to draw near to the Lord. We must be about the work of seeking to bring the needed restoration, reformation, and revival that our local churches desperately need. But we must be ready because this usually won't happen because of one single passionate appeal or a single loving gesture or a single tactical change. Rather God does this work through us as we engage in clear consistent teaching over the course of years, faithful compassionate care over those same years and diligent devoted fellowship over those same years to bring about the fruit in its season. |