The Unity
As we discussed the church this last week I touched on the importance of Church unity. This is a concept that has taken such a peripheral position in the church it is almost non-existent. And when it is discussed it is kinda this sloppy "your ok, I'm ok let's ignore the difficult issues" kinda unity. True unity in the church comes from the Spirit of God binding us together and from rallying around the true message brought by God's word (the Apostle's teaching we talked about this last week). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Love that animates our hearts and lives to unity and the apostle's teaching provides the framework within we live for unification of the Body. As we live in this Spirit inspired love we are able to humbly and honestly confront challenges to our unity using God's word as our guide.
14Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. 2 Tim 2
26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3
12Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3
4And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10
Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 1 Peter 3
5May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, 6so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15
12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.27Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. I Corinthians 12
22Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. I Peter 1
15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4
Frustrated.
It is amazing how often we as Christians are frustrated in our spiritual walks. For many of us who truly desire to reflect the nature of Christ, the nature of the Gospel in our lives we find ourselves frustrated when we don't do those things we are "supposed" to be doing. You know what I am saying; to reject sin, embrace charity, live selflessly. It seems all too common to look at your lives and say, "Gosh darn it, why can't I live right!" It's funny because even Paul had this experience in Romans 7:
15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God,in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am!
It almost seems like this is the the "natural" state of Christianity. Frustrated. But obviously that isn't God's calling for us. I mean Paul writes in the very next chapter in Romans 8: 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So what's the key? How do we live free from that frustration? How do we move from "wretched man that I am" to "more than conqueror"?
One "method" many in the church world use is to just kinda ignore the true biblical expectations of a believer. It is the "we prayed our prayer of salvation so Im ok, your ok, we're all ok" christianity. It's the "churchy-anity" approach that focuses almost exclusively on the forgiveness of Christ and then lives in the "blessings" it affords us. Unfortunately, most often it defines blessings in the asame context that the world and the flesh defines blessings; health, wealth, prosperity and security. It ignores the true calling of the Gospel. The one that calls us to pick up our cross and DENY ourselves. The one that positions us to live a holy, separated unto God, life that is not engaged in the pursuits of this world. It still pursues wealth and pleasure and sees Christianity as just a great way to get it. It's the Christianity that puts a smile on your face, embraces the "forgiveness" of Christ and ignores the difficult, sacrificial, self denying calling of the Cross. If you never put forward an expectation of holiness you never have to feel bad when you fall short.
Another method many in the church use to move past the frustration is to find a false sense of spiritual superiority in the "good" life they lead. They have established a bunch of laws and rules and they live close enough to the line that they can always find an ample number of people to whom their religious life is so superior. It is the security that the Pharisees in Christ's time clung to and that Jesus came to explode. It is always interesting to me that the only time Christ addresses people who are "good tithe-ers" he calls them whited tombs, spiffy on the outside but full of death inside, and filthy cups, clean on the outside but dirty inside. The law may work to pacify your guilt but it does nothing to cleanse you or bring you into alignment with the Gospel of Christ.
I think the key to living a life that strives to emulate the Gospel of Christ and at the same time not be gripped by frustration is to reject the premise that we have to deny the declaration "wretched man that I am" to embrace the role of "more than conqueror". I believe the doorway to truly embracing the life of true conqueror is knowing the wretchedness of ourselves. You see in the verses that followed his statement about his wretchedness and preceded his declaration of conquering, Paul never rejects the truth of his wretchedness. He realized, and lived in that realization, that nothing he could do would ever bring him to live in accordance with the Gospel calling in his life, only what Christ could do through him. He realized that Christ's sacrifice on the cross freed him from the sin-guilt of his fallen nature. He had been put in right relation with God, cleansed, justified, no longer under the judgement of sin. He understood the "positional sanctification" ,that we talked about this last Sunday, had happened in his life as a result of Christ's sacrifice and Christ's calling and therefore he never had to live in fear that his position in Christ's kingdom would be threatened by the weakness of his sinful flesh. That source of frustration is gone. I am God's and He is mine.
He then was able to move to the Gospel living nature of his calling, realizing that in spite of the "shell of flesh" that encases our spirit of man we can live by the Spirit because we have been given, by Christ, new hearts and minds that desire and dwell on the spiritual path of our calling. He acknowledges his wretchedness and rejects his ability to lean on his own strength and discipline while embracing the growth that comes from following our new hearts and from knowing the will of God that comes from the mind of Christ we have been given. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Christ is working to perfect us as we yield. Does this mean we live in perfection? No it means we are being perfected by Christ. This is why Paul states: 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Frustration is not our natural state but we don't avoid frustration by ignoring the call of our new hearts and minds to live in accordance with Christ's Gospel or by thinking we can ignore the wretched inability of our compliance with law to justify us. The state of the believer is being conformed to the image of Christ. The journey of being transformed by the power of Christ's spirit is our state and our destiny. He is at work in you. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Giving, It's Own Reward
This last Sunday I spoke about money and the transformative importance of giving. For those of you who have been around a while you know I don't talk about that topic very often. I think over the last 21/2 years I have spoken on it 3 times. You also know in the past we haven't even "passed the plate" on a Sunday morning. Although my intentions in those decisions were to make it clear to people that MHC is not here to get your money but to bring the message of Christ to people, I have often thought that my diminishing the idea of giving was not serving the spiritual growth of people in our community. I mean Jesus talks about it, Paul talks about it, James talks about it, why shouldn't we talk about it? Really, you would be surprised how often the question of money is addressed by Christ in the gospels and by the writers of the epistles.
Several times I have mentioned to pastor friends of mine how we have taken a low key approach to the topic of giving and have heard this phrase in response: "You are robbing your people of a blessing". And I think they may have been right... to a degree. Now I know some of those folks are coming from a "prosperity gospel" perspective. The idea that when we give money God will multiply that money back to us. If you give $10 he will bless you back with $100. It's a kinda spiritually guaranteed investment plan. Of course, as with most investment propositions, you need to read the fine print, if you don't have enough faith or if you have sin in your life, really whatever vague reasoning we can identify to explain a result that doesn't fit with the "guarantee". You know, past performance doesn't guarantee future results. This theology is rooted in really bad biblical interpretation. The purveyors of this doctrine often use verses like Luke 6:
8 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Unfortunately if you actually take the verse in context you realize that Christ is referring to a favorite topic of His: forgiveness and judgmentalism, not money. Just look at the following verses and you see the truth of this:
39 He also told them this parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. 41"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
It buttresses nicely with His teaching to Peter about forgiveness:
21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Jesus teaches that we forgive so that God forgives us. Forgiveness and money are not interchangeable elements. They are not equivalent and the "laws" of God do not
apply equally. In fact if you go back to the passage in Luke 6 you discover Jesus talks about money just a few verses before:
24"But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
I don't think this teaching fits well with the "prosperity gospel" but that isn't to say that we are not blessed by giving. There is a saying that "giving is it's own reward" and although I believe that is true the blessing of giving goes beyond the good feelings we get from giving and goes way beyond any monetary "return" that may come our way. The blessing is in the refining of faith that comes from giving. The blessing is in the spiritual growth that is discovered in reducing our dependance and desire for the things of this world. As followers of Christ, being freed from the impediments of this world to embrace the spiritual truths of God is the greatest blessing we can discover and learning to freely, gladly and generously give brings that blessing into our lives. It is righteousness in God that is our greatest reward. I Timothy teaches us this truth so clearly:
... (men) who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. 6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith.
My encouragement to you is to learn the spiritual discipline of giving so that you may discover the great spiritual blessing of faith and hope in God that produces contentment.