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).
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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. |
AuthorEddie Ragsdale Archives
May 2024
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