This idea of agreeing vs. being has been on my mind all week. I shared a story when I preached last month to the youth group at my church; a story that was a part of the beginnings of a radical transformation that has taken place in my life over the last year. A friend and I went to watch a movie that I was a bit reluctant to see. I had an idea of what to expect as far as the content of the movie is concerned, but I also knew it was going to be really funny so I decided to go. As my friend and I reclined in our seats surrounded by the laughter and amused faces of the audience that filled the packed theater that night, I began to grow more and more uncomfortable. By the end of the movie, I saw the smiling faces of the audience, heard them as they complimented the humor and could not help but sense the reality of what I was experiencing. Here is that reality:
Most of the people in this theater probably do not know Christ and have no interest in him. They just watched all of these things that clearly offend God and had no problem watching it; in fact, they enjoyed it....and the truth is, if these people were to die today, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of them will spend eternity in hell. My friend and I sat here, enjoyed the movie they enjoyed, laughed at the offensive things they laughed at, were amused and entertained by what we clearly know dishonors God, and did not say anything to any of them concerning this offense to God. We enjoy the same things, were entertained by the same things, and did not take seriously the offense to God....the difference between us and them is, on Sunday we will go to Church and when we die our expectation is to meet Christ in glory.
And at that moment, the questions I had to painfully confront are: If God is really God, if he means what he says in his word, how can this be compatible with Christianity? And to go deeper...is this it? Is this all that Christ's blood that was shed on the cross accomplished? We get saved, God rescues us from hell, but we still indulge in the sin we love? It's as if we are saved from the weight, guilt and result of sin, but we are not saved from sin itself. A Jewish theologian by the name of Art Katz put it this way, We have made the faith into "a comfortable religiosity that leaves our real interests unchallenged and undisturbed in the avoidance of the cross of Christ Jesus."
And I think this is the question we need to be asking ourselves. Has our Christianity degenerated into mere religion that is accomplished by agreeing with what has been said but in actuality has no resemblance to what is seen in scripture? Is it simply a agreeing that does not result in being; a crossless salvation where there is no death to self? If we have a Christianity that the bible does not agree with, is it Christianity at all? The answer to these questions have been plainly answered in the bible, but somehow we have clouded our view of the reality of scripture. In Mark 4, Jesus appropriately asks "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?" We are warned in the parable of the sower through this question. This parable deals with a recurring theme in the gospels which is the careful comparing of what is true and want is false. Wheat and tares, wise virgins and foolish virgins, sheep and goat, true and false, actual and appearing. I agree that if you do not carefully consider this parable, you cannot understand the others. If it is flippantly overlooked, there is a danger of living a Christianity that hears about sheep and goats, and instead of confronting what is the true condition of our hearts, passively convinces ourselves that we are fine. And many churches cater to this by passively avoiding the critical doctrines of conversion and regeneration and instead unknowingly participating in the practice of encouraging behavior modification that simply creates a platform for training goats to behave like sheep rather than challenging us to biblically examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.
Now don't get me confused. I am not promoting a works salvation. What I am saying is that our repentance is proved by our good works (Acts 26:20). Biblical Christianity is not simply to agree that what God says is right. The rich young ruler agreed that Jesus was right even though he was not willing to forsake what he valued most, as a result he walk away downcast. He knew what Christ said was right. Herod actually heard about Jesus and longed to see him even though he is the one who ordered for John the baptizers beheading and had no intention of following him (Luke 23:8). So agreeing with the teaching of Christ or wanting to hear what he says with intrigue is not an appropriate measure of biblical conversion. The work of Christ in conversion is giving life to men who were dead in their sin through regeneration; to actually bring about real change in the hearts of men and a new found heart felt desire for God. The work of Christ accomplished on the Cross was to take the heart of stone and give men hearts of flesh; a heart that has the capacity to react to the commands of God and to love and enjoy him. The work of God in conversion is to literally take men that are dead in sin and give them life. To change their affections so they begin to love God, to love what he loves and hate what he hates. The result of this work of Christ in the hearts of men is BEING a new creature, not just agreeing with what God says and doing good things when it's convenient.
Too often the experience of professing believers is to still have a heart that is actively pursuing all of our own desires and longings, a heart that conforms the scripture to our lives. The result is a condition where we want all the same things, but we want God to provide them rather than us getting them on our own. To paraphrase John Piper....Same hotel, different bus boy.... same restaurant, different waiter..... same longings, same desire, different servant. Now Christ is the means, but it is still the serving of our own interests.
Contrary to what many have portrayed, Christianity is not a life where we make many extraordinary claims but live such ordinary lives. The common word for that is HYPOCRISY. If Christ saves, he does the work to change us as well. He puts in the work through diverse means to conform us to his image. We suddenly have a deep love for Christ and a desire to know him. We have a desire to read and understand his word. We have a desire to pray. And even at times when the desire seems dim, our hearts ache because we desire to want him. We have a new found love for other believers that makes us willingly sacrificially serve each other. There is a longing to see those who don't know the good news of the gospel come to Christ. And as a corporate body, God begins to show himself to the world through a community that does not embrace the individualism of the culture, but recklessly and selflessly pursue relationships in order to serve each other in love so that we all draw nearer to Christ.
I have seen drastic changes in my life through the work of Christ, but because of how I understood Christianity when I was first introduced to the scriptures, I was always torn inside. Many of us go through our Christianity making excuses for not sharing the gospel with the lost, discipling others, and fighting and overcoming our besetting sins. I definitely know what it feels to go through that, and at times it is still difficult. I felt like there had to be more to the faith than what I was experiencing. And by God's grace, through many difficult dealings, I have come to understand in scripture that Christs death was not weak. He came to save those whom the Father gave to him and when the scriptures say that anyone who is in Christ is a new creature, this is not figurative language. It is a glorious truth of what was powerfully accomplished through Christs death on the cross. The examples are seen throughout the new testament. God took ordinary men and totally changed them. They became men who lived selflessly and embraced suffering because of a love for God that overwhelmed them. And that love was driven by the realization of their sin along with the penalty they deserved and the amazing grace granted to them through Christ. (The Gospel!) And this is what changed me, understanding the glorious gospel in truth. I cannot emphasize the "in truth" enough. I did not have men to physically disciple me on many of the things that God has graciously helped me understand, but I did have the sermons and teachings of John Piper, Paul Washer, Voddie Baucham, Leonard Ravenhill, Mark Driscoll and so many others who take the scriptures seriously to learn from. I also had a few brothers in the faith who have been on this road with me in the faith. And as I am learning, I am becoming more aware of my sin and more dependent on the grace of God. I am also experiencing the change in heart that makes me long to reach out to people, bring them in and show them how to walk it out through the scriptures and my life. I am naturally an introvert so this was not my default disposition, but Christ is so worthey of losing all that you are for His glory to be seen by all men! By God's grace, these examples and all that is written throughout the scriptures will challenge us to examine ourselves and see where we stand biblically. I write all of this praying it will encourage you, challenge you and help you realize that change is possible. It is possible because of what Christ accomplished on the cross. There is more to the Christian life than agreeing with scripture and passively walking it out rather than being all that God calls us to be.
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