Don't Be A Cancer In The Body Of Christ

But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God.  You're active like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast.  Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seen capable of anything more.  As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe the breast, content only when everything goes your way? --1 Corinthians 3:1-3, The Message Bible

 My wife and I were having breakfast with friends this morning when I saw a wall hanging similar to the one in the photo above.  She and I both smiled at the words "Jesus and germs are everywhere."  Now we know that we don't mix Christology with biology--the Spirit of God is omnipresent, even in a physical environment that is sterilized and sanitized.  On a spiritual level, this is part of the mystery of how and why God chose to dwell among people.  "There is none righteous, no not one." (Romans 3:10).  Yet we are called to put on His righteousness, and to put away sin.

Once in awhile I get very discouraged because of my own sin nature.  I feel useless in God's kingdom.  As a result of my dwelling on myself in this way, I become useless to God's kingdom.  My focus is lost--I focus not on Him and His will for my life, but on me and my own shortcomings.  The enemy uses every opportunity to make us ineffective, and for me, it is by focusing on my own sin.

The Bible talks a lot about all Christians being the Body of Christ.  The Message Bible puts it this way:

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body.  Your body has many parts--limbs, organs, cells--but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body.  It's exactly the same with Christ.  By means of His one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives.  We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which He has the final say in everything.  --1 Corinthians 12:12-13.

When there is unity in the Body of Christ, there is revival.  God works through His people in amazing ways.  Jesus alluded to this when He spoke to one of His disciples, one who would be tasked with starting the Church after Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension.  The disciple was named Simon, and he was a hard-headed fisherman.  Jesus gave him the nickname Petros, which means "Rocky" or "Pebble".  We get the name Peter from this Greek word for "little rock".  Anyway, Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."   The point I am making here is the description of the Church--when it is firing on all cylinders, it is unstoppable.

That's why Satan tries to work on a very elemental level.  If he can make individual people lose focus by falling into sin, or fear, or failure, then he can make the entire Body less effective.  Many times people outside the Church will not accept an invitation to come in and hear the Word of God, using the excuse, "The Church is so full of hypocrites."  And so we are.  Paul was speaking to the Church in Galatia when he said this:

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or ever be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.  I could go on.  --Galatians 5:19-21, The Message Bible

Like a cancer, Satan attacks each cell of the Body.  In response, the cells become black and ugly.  Some cancers are benign--they make the cells ineffective, but are not harmful to other cells.  This is like our having secret sins, but then going to church and smiling like nothing is going on.  We are not producing as we ought; making disciples is the last thing on our minds when we are caught up in our own little world.  We think we have our sin contained, but instead, the sin contains us.  Other forms of cancer are more malignant.  The very word "malignant" comes from the same root word as "mean".  When we malign others, we are talking badly about them.  Many churches are full of spiteful, malicious, malevalent, evil-intentioned people. We are vindictive, vengeful and cruel.  We are mean, nasty and hurtful.  How can we then say, "Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world"?

And yet, it is true.  He is greater.  Because of his great grace and mercy, we are not cut off from His people.  Many people speak of Jesus as "the Great Physician".  Like a skilled surgeon, He is able to extract malignancy from His Body.  Part of the mystery is that He can remove sin without removing the sinner.  Yes, I know that sometimes it is better for some people to just leave a church rather than to continue gossipping or complaining or butting heads with the Pastor and staff. That's not what I am talking about.  If we are all parts of the Body, yet we are all sinners, God can remove the sin without removing us from His salvation.  We are still His.  We just need a cleansing, and we need it daily.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along.  If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter.  He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.  He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.  That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what He was doing from the very beginning.  He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love Him along the same lines as the life of His Son.  The Son stands first in the line of humanity He restored.  We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in Him.  After God made that decision of what His children should be like, He followed it up by calling people by name.  After He called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with Himself.  And then, after getting them established, He stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what He had begun.   --Romans 8:26-30, The Message Bible

Don't be discouraged, friends.  Love God.  Allow Him to love you, to hear the Spirit translate your heavy sighs into prayers to the Father, and to make you more like Jesus.  Don't stay in the pigpen of sin; let Him clean you up and use you.  He can miraculously take broken vessels like us and patch us together into a body that accomplishes His purpose.  We are not called to be benign bearers of His name.  Let us not malevolently malign men made just like us.  Instead, let us humbly look to Him, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Don't be an Idiot

I learned something this week.  Whenever I catch myself making a mistake, I will yell at myself, and call myself names.  Some people do that to other people, call them "Stupid" or "Dummy."  I don't often call others names as much as I call out myself for doing dumb stuff.

The name I most often call myself is "Idiot."  Less often, I might use the moniker "Imbecile."  Very rarely will I say I'm a "Moron."  It turns out, I should call myself "Moron" more often than the other two.  Well, I shouldn't call myself those names at all--I am fearfully and wonderfully made, created in the image of God Himself.  But 100 years ago, those three terms were used to describe levels of mental retardation.

An "average" IQ is 100.  The "Normal" range is IQ of 75 to 120.  Slight retardation, the IQ scores between 50 and 75, was called "Moron."  The "Imbecile" designation was moderate retardation, with IQ scores between 25 and 50.  The most severe designation, with IQ scores lower than 25, was called "Idiot."

Mental health professionals don't use those terms any more.  They haven't been in use in that sense since the 1970s.  But their use in slang and common vernacular continues on today.  Since it's still the first of the year, and I haven't made any resolutions yet, I will resolve to not call myself an "Idiot" or "Imbecile" any more.  I will be at least on the "Moron" level.

I learned something else today--something that made me feel like a "Moron".  I have been a student of the Scriptures for 30 years.  I have a seminary degree, for goodness sake.  But today I learned that I have been misinterpreting a parable of Jesus, misapplying Scripture to my life.

Here is the passage in question:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.  --Matthew 13:44-46

Knowing that the term "Kingdom" means a place where the King has Dominion (King-Dom), I had always thought that Jesus was speaking about his followers in these parables.  The treasure seeking man, and the merchant, I thought, represented those of us who "seek him with all our hearts."  I remembered the words of Jesus, "Seek and ye shall find; knock and the door shall be open to you."  So the faithful, as seekers, stumble upon the Truth.  And in order to appropriate the Truth into our lives, we give up everything.  Again, Jesus' words (I thought) that paralleled this parable: "And whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or farms for my sake will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life."(Matthew 19:29).

So, in a nutshell, I was interpreting this Scripture as a defense for a works-based salvation.  If you want to reach the Kingdom of Heaven, I thought, then you must sell everything you have and follow Him.  By extension, anyone who did not sacrifice everything was not worthy of Him.  By "everything", I mean relationships, possessions, hopes, dreams--everything.  It didn't really matter that this was impossible.  Nor did it matter to me that this interpretation contradicted other scriptures I knew, like Ephesians 2;8-9.  "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith; and that not of  yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Dr. Wayne Braudrick, pastor of Denton Bible Church, has a radio program that comes on just about drive time on my way home from work.  His interpretation is that Jesus is speaking of Himself.  He is the treasure seeker.  The treasure is the people of Israel.  Israel had lost their way, and Jesus found them.  When He found them, he purchased the remnant with His own life--everything He had.  And the purpose of telling the story twice is to include the Gentiles.  Dr. Braudrick says that a recurring biblical symbol for Gentiles is of things related to the Sea.  The people that the Israelites called "Philistines" actually called themselves "Sea People".  Even when we were enemies of God, He found us.  He bought us at a great price.  Leaving Heaven, Jesus "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:7-8).

To sum up, Jesus found us where we are; He saw value in us; He gave up everything to redeem us.  We are the pearl of great price.  The Jewish people are the treasure hidden away; one day they will acknowledge Him as Messiah.

It doesn't take a moron to see His overwhelming love for us.  Only an imbecile would turn their back on that grace.  Don't be an idiot--place your faith and trust in Him today.

Time Is NOT On Our Side

"Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.  We will bury you!"  --Nikita Khrushchev

 Satan must be a patient person.  For each time of renewal and revival throughout history, it is forgotten within one generation.  From the moment of creation until now, we not only forget ourselves, we forget the God who made us, who redeemed us, who loves us with an undying love.

We do not know how long Adam enjoyed Eden.  It could have been years.  Imagine living in an earthly paradise, working with God as your mentor, knowing that whatever your question or problem or need, God would provide.  Yet in time Eve let the serpent wear her down, convincing her that God was not providing knowledge, whether good or evil.  She offered to Adam, who was also convinced.  They discovered that God had protected them from sin and evil, but no more.  They were the last humans to know God's perfect plan for earth.

Abraham was given the promise of God that through his son Isaac a great nation would come.  Isaac, whom the Bible calls the Son of Promise (see Galatians 4:23) must have known that his mother was past her child-bearing years when he was born.  This same Isaac participated in an act of sacrifice with his father Abraham--he was bound and  placed upon the altar; he watched, probably terror-stricken, as his father raised a knife above his heart; he saw the angel stay his father's hand.  Genesis 22:8 states, "Abraham said, 'God will provide himself a lamb'."  And so he did, there in the thicket beside the altar where Isaac had lain, and also millenia later on a mountain outside Jerusalem called Calvary.  Yet in Genesis 25:21, we see that "Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless."

Isaac's grandson Joseph rose to prominence in Egypt, acting as the Prime Minister, second only to Pharaoh himself, because of his ability to interpret dreams.  His administration of Egypt's resources helped that country survive a seven year drought.  Many neighboring nations, including the sons of Israel, were drawn to Egypt to buy food.  Isaac's family emigrated to Egypt, and the nation multiplied there.  Notwithstanding the awesome power of God evident in Joseph, Exodus 1:8 says, "Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt."  This new leader felt threatened by the multiplied descendants of Jacob, and enslaved them.

Jump ahead to the birth of our Savior.  Jesus' birth, though humble, was marked by angelic hosts singing praises to God in the hearing of shepherds.  It was memorialized by wise men from the east who proclaimed Him King.  Yet by the time he was 30 years old when He began His earthly ministry, only Mary his mother remembered His grand entrance into this world.

And so it goes.  A generation ago, evangelist Billy Graham was invited into the White House to minister to a long succession of US Presidents.  Today President Obama tries to quell worldwide unrest by saying, "I am a muslim."  He may be trying to be like John F. Kennedy, who went to Germany in 1963 and said "Ich bin ein Berliner".  Kennedy was voicing support for West Germany as they fought against the communists who had taken over East Germany.  It was the beginning of the Cold War.  Obama's attempt to mirror that, however, falls short on many levels: he is trying to end a war with ISIS, not start one; he is identifying himself with a religion, not a people or a political party.  The man who said in his campaign in 2003 that he was a Christian now identifies with Islam, not because of a conversion but rather in some ham-handed attempt to garner ecumenical support against a war he has no control over.  It is like a beauty pageant contestant wishing for World Peace.

But I digress.  Thank God that although He is the same yesterday, today and forever, we also know that "every morning His mercies are new." (Lamentations 3:23).  To each generation that has forgotten what has gone on before, God re-introduces Himself in miraculous ways.  I pray that this generation will look up to Him, and see Him for who He really is.  Because this generation may be the last one before Judgement.

I Told You So!

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.…Romans 8:28-30

Have you ever had a gut feeling about a person?  It might have been that first impression.  Or it might have been a pattern of behavior.  Whatever it was, it came as no surprise to you when that person failed big time.  You see it in a courtroom, where a mother has just seen her wayward son sentenced to prison.  "I always knew that boy would be in trouble some day."  You see it when an aging father embraces his newly divorced daughter.  "I never trusted that guy."

Some of that is intuition, and some of it is judgmentalism--jumping on the bashing bandwagon after that ship has sailed.  (I know, I'm mixing metaphors).  It's sometimes hard for us to tell the difference, which is why a lot of people get caught up in the verses in Romans chapter 8 about predestination.  How can God know beforehand whether we will accept Him, if there is such a thing as Free Will?  Because God is all-knowing.  If we are predestined to to love God and be called to His purpose, doesn't that mean that some other people are predestined to hell?  No, because God gives everyone the same opportunity--He sent His Son to die for all men.  John 3:16 says, "God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only Son..."  Not, "God so loved the Baptists", or "God so loved the Republicans."  He loved the WHOLE WORLD.

But still, He knows.

I have always wanted to do a character study of Saul, the first king of Israel.  What a character to study!  I truly think he was bi-polar.  We know from Scripture that he was disobedient to God's law, and unfaithful to God's word as spoken through the prophet Samuel.

Samuel tried to tell the people of Israel that God was their king.  But no, the people demanded that a king be set up over them, to rule them.  Samuel warned them that this meant higher taxes.  It meant that some of their sons and daughters would be forced into serving the new monarch, because a king needs stable boys and chamber maids.  (See 1 Samuel chapter 8).  It didn't matter.  They saw the neighboring countries, the competing peoples, and thought they were somehow at a disadvantage.  They had no human king to lead them into battle.  There was no monarch to meet with foreign dignitaries, or to sign treaties, or to look up to.

Ironically, God chose Saul, who stood head and shoulders above every other man.  If they wanted some person to look up to, God certainly gave it to them.  By all appearances, this was the man to lead Israel.  Yet when Samuel went to offer sacrifices to the Lord for the new king, Saul hid out among the baggage. (See 1 Samuel 10:21-23).

Back to the point at hand:  God knows what we will do before we do it.  Saul is set up as king over Israel.  The first order of business was to make war against the Philistines.  1 Samuel chapter 13 tells of how Saul amassed an army of fighting men, and they made ready to fight.  He knew that they still needed God's help, and that God demanded a sacrifice to be made.  They waited seven whole days for the prophet Samuel to show up to offer the sacrifice.  I can imagine Saul sitting there, seething.  "I am the King," he might have thought.  "How dare this priest not come running when I send for him."  Finally, Saul gets tired of waiting.  He orders the altars to be prepared with fire, and the bulls to be brought up for the sacrifice.  He offers the sacrifice himself, in the place of Samuel.

Stop and think about that for a moment.  Saul, who is merely a king, has no standing before God.  He needs a mediator, a go-between, to offer the sacrifice for him and the people.  Instead, he usurps the role of priest, and tries to offer the sacrifice to God all by himself.  Isn't that like us sometimes?  We grow tired of waiting for the Holy Spirit to move, so we defiantly stand up to God and take matters into our own hands.  Then we are surprised when God doesn't bless us.  The Bible says, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man--the man Jesus Christ." (1 Timothy 2:5).  When we try to reach God on our own, we will fail miserably.  There are not enough good works we can do to stand before God.  We need Jesus to stand before God on our behalf, to take our sin upon Himself, to clothe us in His own righteousness.

Here is the point of my little story.  As soon as Saul offers a sacrifice to God for the people, the prophet Samuel  arrives on the scene.

"What have you done?" asked Samuel.

Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord's favor.'  So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."

"You acted fooishly," Samuel said.  "You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.  But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command."  --1 Samuel 13:11-14

God was testing Saul.  If, in the face of a dwindling Israelite army and a swelling Philistine presence, Saul had waited on the Lord, it would have shown great faith in God.  Remember Gideon, who faced the enemy with just a squad of 300 men?  No doubt Saul had learned of Gideon's victory as a young Jewish boy.  If Saul had just exhibited faith and obedience, God could have made his dynasty last forever.  Instead, God had found another, a man after God's own heart, to lead His people.

Let's camp here a while longer.  Saul would be king over Isreal 40 more years (assuming that Saul reigned over Israel 42 years, and that this incident occurred within the first 2 years of his reign.)  That's a long time to rule over a people without God's blessing.  Samuel informed him that "Your kingdom will not endure."  His reign effectively ended that day.  He had no right of succession for his son Jonathan.  He had no dynasty to look forward to.  Not only that, but God had already picked his successor.  Look back at the passage, at verse 14.  He did not say, "Since you have not kept the Lord's command, He will seek out a man after His own heart."  What he said was, "The Lord has already sought out a man after his own heart, and has already appointed him leader of His people."

It was like God said, "I told you so."

You think you want a king?  I am your king.  You want to look up to a man?  Here is a man you can look up to--he is a foot and a half taller than all of you.  You think he will lead you in My ways?  I know better, and I told you so.

In His omniscience, God knew that Saul would not step up and lead the people of Israel in the ways of the Lord.  By the same token, in His grace, God was already preparing David to be king.  David, who learned humility as a shepherd for his father's sheep.  David, who was called into Saul's service as a musician, one to play the harp when Saul fell into a rage.  David, who was asked to step up and fight Goliath, a giant of a man, taller than Saul.  (Yet Saul still tried to put his own armor on David.  It hadn't helped Saul, and it wouldn't help David, either--but that's another sermon.)  David, who while in the service of Saul became a fugitive, because Saul wanted to take David's life.  David, who became best friends with the prince, Saul's son Jonathan, who gave David his royal robe, his sword, his bow and his belt.  By the time David ascended to the throne, he was uniquely qualified and trained to do the job.  He was a man after God's own heart.

Many times we try to do things our own way.  We don't wait on the Lord.  We usurp His authority.  We inevitably end up fallen, broken before God.  Yet God, in His mercy, has already made provision for us.  He proves again and again that he is able to show us great and mighty things that we don't even know. (Jeremiah 33:3).  The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” "

I am encouraged by the way The Message Bible puts it:

We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text: No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it— What God has arranged for those who love him. Butyou’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.

Look at it again in the Phillips translation:

But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him’. But God has, through the Spirit, let us share his secret. For nothing is hidden from the Spirit, not even the deep wisdom of God. For who could really understand a man’s inmost thoughts except the spirit of the man himself? How much less could anyone understand the thoughts of God except the very Spirit of God? And the marvellous thing is this, that we now receive not the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God himself, so that we can actually understand something of God’s generosity towards us. 

What more does God have to say?