Change

It hit me the other day like a bolt of lightening. I have been writing and preaching for more than a couple of years now that there is great change required in the church in America; that somehow, sometime we need to get the message that the church as it exists today is NOT the church that Jesus promised to build in Matthew 16: ("I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.") I was walking away from a men's fellowship breakfast where I had just been the speaker and it fell on me like a flood.  "I don't have to preach the need for change anymore!"  

Oh its not that the church doesn't any longer need to change; that we have somehow gotten our holy act together and everything is fine.  We are still, in too many instances, a carnal minded, consumerist entertainment center more focused on competing with the church across town than the crack house across the street.  We still scream with bulging arteries at the abortionist and homosexual couple while our own house is filled with divorce, fornication and adultery, extortion, pride, bitterness and condemnation; and, we wonder that no one seems to be listening.  We say we want to change the world, but we aren't even able to change ourselves. 

However, change is coming.  Whatever way you want to say it: the planets are aligned, the ducks are in a row, the machinery is in motion, the dominoes have been tipped, the plug has been pulled - whatever floats your boat; the flames of testing have been lit and when they are done then will come to pass the saying of Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:11 - "For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ.  Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw -- each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done." 

Here are just a few things about us I think are about to be exposed:

1.  We have won converts, but we have not made disciples.  Jesus said, "Go and make disciples, teaching them to obey."  (Matthew 28:19).  We make sure someone "prays the prayer" or "comes to church", but our converts are little different than the world after their prayer.  Our "converts" are not transformed.  They believe like a christian but seem to be unable to ACT like one.  We think discipleship takes place in a class on Sunday mornings.  However, true discipleship is forged in the crucible of life and until each mature believer is willing to take on the mentoring responsibilities of discipleship, we will continue to make converts - and when the "fire" comes our neglect will be exposed. 

2.  We have not changed the world.  We live in the age of the mega church with tens of thousands in attendance, superstars in the pulpit and the best entertainment in worship music around.  Superficially, it looks like success.  However, fewer people attend church now than 25 years ago.  We have more publishers, books stores, christian radio and television and Bible colleges and universities than at any time in history and as a good friend of mine once said, "when the epitaph of the 20th century church is written we will be known as the most biblically illiterate generation in history."  In most communities today the church is not hated - it is irrelevant.  We claim to be changing the world, but the truth is that we've allowed the world to change us. 

3.  Church growth is based on fuzzy math.  There are those who will proclaim the church is growing faster than at any time in history. Not true.  We have seen the emergence of the mega churches and it looks like we have made gigantic strides.  Actual statistics show that we have not been growing, we've been "rotating stock".  There are not more people in church - they have just migrated from the small church to the mega church.  The megas are booming but the expansion of the kingdom is flat.  As some clever person has said, we are no longer fishers of men but keepers of aquariums and pastors spend most of their time moving fish from one aquarium to the another. 

4.  We value results more than holiness. We have forgotten that in all of the Bible, God never asked us to produce results.  He did on several occasions, demand holiness.  We emulate the values of business more than the values of the kingdom.  A big crowd is more important than a faithful crowd.  Our model has been big crowds, giant budget, sprawling complexes, large staff, prestige and fame. When we have had to choose between being successful and holy, we almost always choose success. 

5.  Our congregations are filled with consumers. They are takers and not givers; they are spectators and not participants.  We have catered to every whim and need, realizing that just like choosing between department stores they will choose between churches based on how well their perceived needs are met.  Most don't how to lead another person to Christ, because we have staff for that.  We don't know how to teach our children the Word of God because we have teachers for that. We don't know how to study the Scriptures and draw eternal truth from it; we have a great preacher for that. We don't know how to lead our families in righteousness because that's the church's job.  

This may seem an extreme statement..........BUT, most of what we esteem as success in the modern western church is about to go 'poof'.  I don't even think it will drop off slowly over a period of years; I mean 'poooooof'; just like somebody dropped a match in a hay mow.  It will be at that exact moment we will find out what is really important and we will start making disciples, measuring success by faithfulness, valuing holiness over numbers, and teaching men to teach others, to lead their own families in the paths of righteousness, and to walk on their own two feet before the Lord. 

You choose...........

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew 5:18

Let me just state, as I begin these paragraphs, that I fully and wholly accept the doctrine of salvation "by grace through faith." This is a foundational principle of the Christian faith that cannot and should not be disputed - it was by grace and grace alone that we were translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. It is by grace and grace alone that we can stand before the throne with confidence, knowing that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the Day of Redemption.  What a wonderful, glorious, liberating truth.  It is because of grace that Paul could write in Romans 8:38, "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Yet, it is a weak understanding of this very concept that causes many in the Body of Christ today to suffer under difficult burdens and endure heartache that can scarcely be measured.  Many, including myself at times, have viewed the gift of grace as some kind of magical "get out of jail free" card, erroneously believing that because grace has been given, I am now free to walk in carnality rather than righteousness with impunity. We wrongly think that if I sin, or if I make a unrighteous choice I have simply to cry "grace" and the consequences of my sin will be nullified.  We offer an insincere "I'm sorry" to our Holy Father and skip out of His presence feeling secure that all is well. We have invoked the divine talisman - grace.

I have been a pastor for 40 years now.  I have a sense of how Moses must have felt at times wandering through the Wilderness of Sinai with the Hebrew children.  I have an idea of the level of frustration he felt when he unleashed white knuckled fury on the rock that God had told him to speak to.  Men and women that I love passionately who have been miraculously delivered from the bondage of their sin continue to stumble around in the wildernesses of addiction, broken marriages, poverty, bitterness, and spiritual failure; oblivious to the possibility that it is our own carnality that keeps us here.  

Listen to what God told Israel in Deuteronomy 28:1-6  "And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your god, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.  And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.  Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.  Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock  Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out." 

Now here is a prosperity message that is Biblical, unlike many that are preached today.  But listen to the antithesis in Deuteronomy 28:15-19:  "But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.  Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.  Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.  Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.  Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out."

Now obviously, there is a great deal more in Deuteronomy 28 than these brief verses.  However, in just reading this short passage we get a clear sense of God's heart.  The two key phrases upon which "blessings" and "curses" swing are: "If you faithfully obey" and "But if you will not obey." I am not advocating legalism here which requires that we do certain things or refrain from doing certain things in order to be saved.  What I am doing is pleading with my brothers and sisters in Christ to recognize that it is possible to be saved and continue to live a miserable, broken, and frustrated life because we are unwilling to walk in the path of holiness and separation from the world.  What we often attribute as the success of the devil in our lives is really many times more than not, the failure of the believer to walk in the path that brings blessings. 

Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.  Deuteronomy 11:26-28

And what is worse, we fail to understand that we communicate the curses we bring upon ourselves to our children. (Exodus 34:7......."the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children to the third and fourth generation." We are upset with our government because they are establishing a financial debt that will be passed to our children and our grandchildren, and yet saved, but disobedient and carnal believers often pass along a debt of sin to their children and grandchildren. I know there are many who are praying and believing for a national revival in America, believing it will come with laughter, and joy and prosperity.  I, on the other hand, believe there will be no national revival until there is a national repentance which will ride on the back of brokenness, heartache, and sorrow for sin.  In my house, that begins with me. How about yours?

Diagnosis

For 50 years I cram my face full of red meat, bacon, potatoes, buttered bread; laced with salt and drowned in an endless cup of caffine.  I have a remote for everything so that once I sit down in my recliner for the evening of "no thought" (a (no) muse (think) ment), and I never walk when I can drive.  Then, with chest pains and a host of gastric issues I say to my physician, "Doc, can't you DO something?"  Of course, what I'm really asking is, "Can't you UNdo something?"  

For months I drive my automobile without checking the oil, or the pressure on the tires - I never check the fluid levels or the condition of all those belt "thingies" under the hood. I won't get a tune up until the car will barely start or clatter down the road. Then I show up at the garage and plead with the mechanic, "Can you DO something, without it costing me a lot?"  Again, what I am asking is, "Can't you undo the months of neglect and abuse I have subjected this automobile to and make it like new again?"

Now to my point.  We spend our spiritual lives essentially ignoring God's Word and thumbing our nose at His commandments.  "Why don't you know, I live under grace and not LAW!"  We look like the world, we talk like the world, we think like the world......we LIVE like the world. We turn to God only on Sunday mornings or in times of great stress - but otherwise can't be bothered with such things as 'holiness' or 'righteous living '.   We know what God's Word says, but...............ah yes, there is always a "but" involved.  Our households are a wreck, our marriages are coming apart at the seams, and our children are in rebellion and we come to God in a panic and say, "Father, don't you love me, DO something!"

"If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer." Exodus 15:26

"But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Deuteronomy 28:15

If you will fear the LORD and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well.  I Samuel 12:14

My heart grieves for those I encounter every day who are desperate for God to DO something about their situation - not realizing that what they are really asking is for God to UNDO years of disobedience and careless spirituality.  We do not remember that sin has immutable consequences and in order to avoid the consequences we must shun the sin.   

God will forgive us of our sin, and we must carefully give Him praise for that wonderful fact - however the JOY He intends for our lives is often stolen by a thief who delights in stripping God's people of the joy and abundance of life that Jesus promised.   We must not only repent of our sins, but we must repent of the careless and insulting life style we have lived before the Lord and before the world.  When we do, we will discover that God has already DONE something, and we can walk with joy in the work that He has already accomplished.  You may not need for God to do anything at all, it may be that YOU need to DO something.  Its called repentance.

Brugger's Evangelism

I just walked out of my office........laptop over my shoulder and a need to be in touch with people who DON'T know that Jesus loves them.  Its not that I don't like Christians, although we can get a little tedious from time to time, endless meetings to share our burdens and problems (many of which could have been prevented by a little simple obedience or aren't really that big anyway in the scheme of eternity).  It just that I was just reading in the gospels and noticed that Jesus didn't spend a lot of time in the "office." Instead He was out in the "highways an byways", interacting with folks - all kinds of folks.  

My problem is that when my parishioners call the church office they expect me to be there doing "stuff," until they need me.  I guess all pastors feel that way from time to time, but I'm really feeling it strongly lately.  I figured out recently that this is why they made "call forwarding" - to free me from my desk and the waiting for somebody who needs me, to call.  Its kind of cool you know, this being needed - kinda makes one feel pretty important.  Except that when you think about it - christians don't really need me. They have Jesus, they have the unchangeable Word of God, they have the indwelling Holy Spirit, our supernatural guide --what in the world do they need ME for.  

As a people (I mean by this christians) we have turned sadly inward, becoming a frantically "needy" people seemingly unable to close ourselves in a prayer closet with the Lord and work through our "issues" so we can reengage with a truly needy world. Needy because men in the world do not have Jesus, do not have the Word of God to turn to, and no abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.    For instance, I'm a big "facebooker" and I'm growing increasingly impatient with the number of us believers who waste the potential of this incredible social network as a "whine tank", not to mention the terrible testimony that some of us put forward on Facebook for the whole world to see. When I realize that my rather large circle of facebook friends are for the most part "christians" and that I have not utilized this powerful tool to engage with people outside of my circle in meaningful dialogue, it frustrates me.  

So if you call me today on the church phone I may answer but I won't be there, I'll be at Brugger's or the Deli, or Mocca Joe's - hopefully engaged in building a new friendship. And if you happen to be a "facebooker" like me and a believer, please clean up your language, adjust your attitude, and update your circle of friends to include people with whom you can engage in a meaningful and profitable way.