As I'm getting my application ready to get into Reformed Theological Seminary, I've been thinking of the implications this whole process will have on my life. I had a conversation recently that was very encouraging, but also put the reality of what I'm about to embark on right in front of my face. You see, I have this heavy burden on my heart to preach the gospel biblically and to see others live a life where they are overwhelmed by who God is; to see people give their lives away for the sake of Christ and his gospel. At the same time, I know that I recently purchased a house and I have a lot of other bills that need to be paid. I know that to leave a pretty good IT job and forfeit a stable life for a life that doesn't have the safety that we all long for is flat out not a wise thing to do....depending on where you get your wisdom from...But honestly, what is it that really matters in this life? When I look at the landscape of Christianity in America, the thought that comes to mind is this....is this what Christ died for? Is this really it? Is dying to self for the sake of something immeasurably greater than self a command reserved for a select group of Christians who have been "called" to it? Is the goal really to be saved, get a good education, get a good job, get married, buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood, raise my kids to strive to be excellent, retire early, and enjoy the rest of my life traveling with my wife? Ok, now take out the "be saved" and what do you have left? The American Dream. And this is where things become difficult for me. Maybe the majority of the "successful" churches in America are right and I'm losing my mind....but this isn't what I see in the bible.
When I was studying 1 John 1:3-4 "that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete."....I realized that every day this is becoming my reality. My joy isn't made complete in the comfort and safety the Christian version of the American Dream offers, it's made complete in my identification with Christs suffering; my joy is made complete when I'm doing what he commands by proclaiming the truth, creating disciples and bringing them into fellowship with Christ. My joy is found in inaudibly proclaiming Christ though living sacrificially and forsaking the individualism of our culture in order to love and care for people inside and outside of the church who I'm sure will disappoint and hurt me. When I open the bible and read it, I see something totally different from what I see when I open the typical churches doors and speak to the people who go to church. And to state it frankly, I don't want to be like them. I don't want my family to be like them. I don't want for my children what they want for theirs. I don't want a Christ that is just an accessory on my self-made, self-satisfying life. I don't want to be comfortable living a life that looks nothing like what I read in the bible and be comfortable there because everyone else who goes to this place every week is living just like me. I don't want to simply be moral. I don't want to offer people a salvation that makes them look like me: safe, secure, and selfish. I refuse to live out a cross-less salvation.
This is not a burden to become a radical christian....it's a burden to live like a normal Christian; the Christianity that I see in the bible. I feel like I'm sort of rambling in this post, but what I desire to say is this: our Christianity cannot be simply a easy, safe, and joyous life that strives for security and avoids suffering as much as possible. There must be a realization of the weighty reality of what the bible actually says and God actually commands. We must live, think, and act with a balance of joy and weight. Our reality seems to be so shaped by the world and so far from God. I listened to a message by Frances Chan where he made a painful observation. If a person was to get rid of their retirement plan in order to have enough money to send to a country where people are starving to death, what would we say? That isn't wise, right? What about having money for emergencies? LISTEN TO OURSELVES!!! Isn't people dying of starvation an emergency?!? Or is it only an emergency if it pertains to us? If you end up growing old and dying of starvation, what would Christ say to you when you face him? "You had money and gave it all away to care for others at the risk of losing everything yourself in faith that I would care for all of your needs?....THAT WAS STUPID!" There is not one thing unwise about risking everything for the sake of the Christ you claim you "trusted" for your salvation.
I say this with my heart broken people....there is too much at stake. The gospel has been prostituted and as a result, what most so called Christians look like looks nothing like what is in the scripture. What most so called churches look like looks nothing like what is in the bible. If you saw a tree with apples on it and someone told you it was an orange tree, would you believe him? Now ask yourself this question concerning your Christianity and your church. Does the bible, and I mean the whole counsel of scripture and not singled out verses, agree with what we proclaim ourselves to be? There is no more serious matter in the world than this. Many people in the world have not heard the gospel and will die without knowing Christ. Over half of the world lives on $2 a day or less. People around the world are starving to death. There are places around the world where Christs name has not been proclaimed....What does this mean to you? We must ask ourselves these real questions, face these realities and figure out how we will deal with them. Will we continue to call ourselves Christians and live lives that are clearly aimed at marginalizing the weighty things Christ takes seriously to sooth our consciences and running after the preaching and lifestyles that promote our desire for comfort and "blessings"?
"Christians should be grave and serious, though cheerful and pleasant. They should feel that they have great interests at stake, and that the world has too. They are redeemed—not to make sport; purchased with precious blood—for other purposes than to make men laugh. They are soon to be in heaven—and a man who has any impressive sense of that will habitually feel he has much else to do than to make men laugh. The true course of life is midway between moroseness and levity; sourness and lightness; harshness and jesting. Be benevolent, kind, cheerful, bland, courteous—but serious. Be solemn, thoughtful, deeply impressed with the presence of God and with eternal things—but pleasant affable and benignant. Think not a smile sinful; but think not levity and jesting harmless."
—Albert Barnes
Ever since I bought my first home last December, I've had a desire to make it a place that is open to my friends and family. I truly believe God gives us all that we have so that we can glorify him by caring for and loving others. So on Labor Day, I decided to fire up the grill and invite a few friends over my house for a time of fellowship and fun. We had such a great time hanging out together. My brother and I were working wonders on the grill, Dwayne brought some of his signature "you're officially invited to every event I have at my house" macaroni and cheese, Christiana FINALLY brought the fruit tray that she promised to bring to the last barbecue, and my parents came over late as usual with a few African dishes that the barbecue just couldn't be complete without. We all had a great time together.
That evening after everyone went home, I decided to do some cooking to relieve me from the guilt of the burger/hot dog/mac-n-cheese feeding frenzy I enjoyed earlier. While baking some maple glazed salmon to eat with vegetables for lunch this week and preparing spaghetti for my brother and I, a thought came to my mind. One of the biggest barriers I've had in my quest to learn how to cook has been my indiscriminate taste buds. You see, I've always been the kind of person that likes a lot of different kinds of foods and doesn't tend to be very selective or picky with the foods I eat. A large reason for this is because...well....most things tend to taste ok to me. I know it sounds strange to some, but I don't care if two foods in my plate mix. If the food I select at a restaurant doesn't taste that great, I usually won't send it back, and it's not because I'm a passive guy who doesn't want to offend anyone or make them do something out of their way, I'm just not that selective. It's probably because to me, it really doesn't taste that bad. Here's the other strange twist to this...this is NOT the case when I eat African foods. Growing up, my mother and grandmother were great cooks and were constantly complimented by people who ate the food they prepared. As a result of eating the same kinds of foods with distinct tastes over a long period of time, I could easily tell what was missing or added in an African dish and developed a very selective taste of African foods.
The problem this presented as I attempted to cook was that my indiscriminate tongue didn't taste what was missing in a dish. It accepted almost anything. And since I wasn't highly selective in my likes and dislikes and didn't pay attention to the distinctive flavors and spices in the foods I ate, it didn't matter much to me. So I was the perfect chef...as long as I was cooking for myself because it all tasted fine to me. Over time I have become much more aware of the flavors in dishes, and a bit more picky as a result. The transition began to take place when I became intentional about learning to cook with a desire to host dinners at my house in the future and learning the appropriate taste to look for through intentionally eating foods that were prepared well and asking how they were made. All of a sudden, flavors and spices mattered so much more, and knowing that I'd be cooking for others was additional motivation.
One of the things I try to do and encourage others to do as believers is to live lives where everything we do is shaped/fashioned by the gospel and try to use our everyday lives and experiences as a means of reflecting on the truths of the gospel. While cooking, this reflection came to mind. If you had to choose between two chefs to cook a meal for an important event, would you pick the one who has developed a keen sense of taste that enables him to know the fine details of how to make a dish taste just right...or a chef with an indiscriminate tongue? One who enjoys what he cooks up, even though it might not taste the way it should? Now consider the words of the bible that mean much more than food or drink. Would you prefer to have a person preaching to you who has studied the scripture and has taken the time to carefully understand key doctrinal matters in order to make sure the words he uses are not passively spoken, but carefully understood and defined for the listeners? One who teaches and shepards in a way that encourages the listeners to live a life shaped by clearly defined truths? Or would you be fine with a preacher who proves by his handling of the word that he does have some sort of concept of important truths of the gospel but does not have a firm grasp on them? One who passively speaks about them so that the congregation ends up having an assumed understanding of important things, but they don't have any depth in their knowledge of these VERY important and essential truths?
Like the cooking example I gave, this is often the case for speakers and hearers alike; the dangerous practice of speaking and listening with an indiscriminate ear. Some of the keys that result in developing an indiscriminate ear are the absence of consistent teachings that have a high view of God and the truths explained in the word, and the absence of the examples of lives lived out which clearly show that they are shaped by these truths. I developed a taste for African food that helped me to be able to know the difference between a properly cooked African dish and one that was missing important ingredients through consistently eating well made dishes. We learn to know sound doctrine and theology through consistently hearing sound theology and checking for consistency with the word. As we hear them, the Holy Spirit aids us in understanding rightly what Christ did for us, giving us an appropriate understanding of scripture that we can learn to follow. On the other hand, we learn to hold tightly to wrong doctrine if we are constantly taught it and don't look into scripture to see if it's correct (as scripture commands). If the chef never learns to know the difference, his customers, if they eat at the same place consistently for a long period of time, will learn to develop a liking for food that tastes similar, but is not prepared properly. And they will possibly develop a distaste for the food that is prepared right. The distaste for good food is a result of a paradigm that has been shaped by the wrong foundation of the untrained chef's cooking standard. If we are consistently taught the scriptures wrongly, the result is that even when something sound is taught, it is understood according to a wrong paradigm and becomes useless .
A wise way to prevent this is by looking for a church that has a high view of scripture. Some signs are:
- A church with biblically qualified leaders. (Titus 1:5-16 9*)
- Exegetical preaching: preaching of the word that goes through the text and emphasizes what was actually meant by the text and does not add meaning to what was inspired by God. (2 Tim 4:2, 1 Cor 1:17, 1 Cor 15:2)
- Practicing of biblical church discipline. It honors God's word and shows a trust for God's means of lovingly dealing with sin. (Mat 18:15-20)
- A church that clearly defines terms such as atonement, justification, conversion, and most importantly, gospel.
If these things are not clearly seen in a church, chances are you may have a chef with great intentions who presents a meal that is very similar to what you ordered (the gospel), but it's not what you ordered at all. If there's one place where it helps to be a picky eater, it's with the most important food you'll ever eat; the word of God.
