Being Part of the Family

Family can be hard to deal with. Parents embarrass their children, children disrespect their parents, and people can expect way too much of each other. All sorts of issues ranging from funny to very serious exist in families, and yet, we only abandon our families in extreme cases. Most of the time, we work through those issues because, well, it’s family.

The question I want to pose today is this; why is it so different with our spiritual family?

I’m talking here about the local church. Of course in a sense all believers are family, but it is clear in Scripture that God calls us to community, to special bonds as a  family of believers with whom we worship, grow in Christ, and live our lives. In 1 Timothy chapter 5 Paul exhorts Timothy to treat older men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters. Indeed, one of Paul’s great concerns in the New Testament is the unity of the local church (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10, Tit. 3:10).

If this is true, and God calls us into strong, devoted community with other believers, why today do we see such a lack of commitment to local churches? Today more than ever, people leave churches for any reason they can conceive of. People leave because the worship style isn’t exactly what they prefer, or because the pastor isn’t as funny as they’d like, or because the church just doesn’t have the programs they want.

Whatever the reason may be, so many Americans feel comfortable taking off any time the church down the road seems a little nicer, and this is a MAJOR problem.

The root of this issue is that we’ve come to think of church as a product being dispensed for consumers, rather than a community growing in Christ. We believe, perhaps subconsciously but still wholeheartedly, that when we go to church its about worship that makes us feel good, and a message that is funny and not too hard to sit through, and comfortable chairs, and making every next step of involvement very easy. And if the church we are at can’t offer it to us, then we just go to one that is “better”. Church becomes all about MY experience, and not about Christ’s work in and through a community seeking him together.

In the long run, this mindset destroys the church. When we have a consumer mindset, we lose depth, because churches cater to what people want, and we want easy. We wan’t fun music with lyrics that don’t make us think. We want funny sermons that only barely prompt us to be slightly better people so we can feel better about ourselves. We don’t want the messy, hard work that goes along with truly getting involved in a community of imperfect people. We want polished and shiny.

And so we get what we want. We get shallow, topical sermons. We get fun, poppy music that all too often lacks any real depth. We get easy programs for getting “plugged in”. but at the end of the day, it doesn’t satisfy, and it creates a very surface-level Christianity.

This is because the hardships of the local church are one of God’s greatest ways of growing us. True, strong community is what can hold us up when we are hurting, it can correct us when we stray, and it can teach us patience and humility like nothing else can. God calls us to be part of a community of believers, not only until it gets hard, but especially when it gets hard. We are called to bear one another’s burdens, to love each other, to take care of the poor and hurting among us, and to strive for unity.

The point of church isn’t to simply go to the service that you like on Sundays, and then maybe join a small group if you really feel it. It is to be totally invested in a community. To love a group of imperfect, annoying people with all that you have, and to be loved by those people even though you’re imperfect and annoying too. And when things that you don’t like come your way, which they will, you are called to love that community, and at times deal with things you don’t like all that much, because family is hard.

There are certainly reasons to leave a church, such as departure from scriptural beliefs, but don’t let personal preference on ultimately insignificant things keep you from being part of the family that God has called you to.

This post is taken from my personal blog. See more here

Two Resolutions About Not Knowing

"The majesty of God in itself goes beyond the capacity of human understanding and cannot be comprehended by it... We must adore its loftiness rather than investigate it, so that we do not remain overwhelmed by so great a splendor" -John Calvin

One of the areas of reformed theology that is most constantly questioned is the reformed understanding of God's sovereignty. This idea is summarized well in what Job said to God in Job 42:2; "“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." We struggle to understand the implications of this idea of a sovereign God. We struggle to harmonize this idea with God's love when we see suffering, or to understand how our own agency as beings relates. Even the most dedicated reformed Christian, when thinking logically about these ideas, comes to a point where he doesn't understand how it works.

However, this article isn't primarily about the doctrine of sovereignty. What I would like to address is how we handle mystery in God. In many areas, sovereignty being only one, we encounter things about God in Scripture that confuse us, and even upset us. How is Christ fully God and fully man? How are there three persons in the Trinity, but only one God? The list goes on and on. There are so many things we don't understand, that nonetheless seem to be clear in Scripture.

Often, when we encounter these things we don't understand, we simply seek to reason them away. After all, we are a modern society, reason is king. The problem is, when we start doing this we end up with teachings that make perfect logical sense, but are very obviously unscriptural. The Arian controversy was a clear example of this, when an attempt to preserve the oneness of God and the logic of the Incarnation, Arius claimed Jesus was a created being. Open theism is another, in which to preserve free will and (supposedly) God's love, theologians turn God into a desperate chess player seeking to lose as few pieces as He can.

For the new year, I have two resolutions when it comes to the mystery I find in God, and I hope you will consider taking them on yourself;

Enjoy the Mystery

The truth is, we will never fully understand God. His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts (cf. Isa. 55:8). If we could fully understand God and wrap Him in our tight little logical box, He wouldn't be God. Our rationalist heritage has embedded in us the belief that there is no intellectual mountain that the human mind cannot climb, but God tells us something different.

So when you come to see something in Scripture that is hard to fully understand, don't run away or immediately seek to explain it away. Instead, enjoy it.

The majestic mysteriousness of God is an amazing thing, and when we approach it with a proper perspective it can be a source of great joy to us. Paul illustrates this perfectly in 1 Cor. 1, when he talks about how the gospel itself is foolishness to the world. Paul knew that to the religious minds of the time, God humbling himself, suffering, and dying for sinful man made absolutely no sense, yet despite the apparent lack of logic Paul said it was for Christians the very "power of God" (v 18). Just because we don't fully understand how something works in every logical detail, doesn't mean we can't appreciate God's glory in it. This year let us revel in the glory of a God who is so incredible that we can't fully grasp Him, and appreciate what He has revealed.

Seek to Understand

Maybe up to this point you are tracking with me, and so you are ready to say something like, "Great! I don't care about trying to understand the details! In fact, let's just throw out the study of theology altogether, because it's just a stupid attempt to fit God in a logical box!" While I appreciate the enthusiasm, this is what I would call some major over-correction. Deut. 29:29 sums it up perfectly;  “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

It is definitely important to accept mystery in God, but once we have a healthy grasp on that idea we are also called to continue to seek to know Him more. While some things about God we will never know, He has revealed Himself in His word for a reason. Make no mistake, that is not just a call to a personal experience, but also a call to grow in knowledge of God. Take these examples;

Psalm 1:1-2;
Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
² but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

Proverbs 1:5;
⁵ Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
    and the one who understands obtain guidance

Psalm 119:34
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
    and observe it with my whole heart.

Rom. 12:2;
² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

If we are to love God and grow nearer to Him, we will desire to understand Him and know more about Him, and as you seek Him you will continue to grow in understanding. It is wrong for us to refuse to attempt to understand what Scripture teaches; this attitude will only lead to ignorance. Instead, if we wish to follow God we must attempt to continue to grow in understanding.

The amazing thing is that even here there is a mystery! We are called to seek to understand and at the same time acknowledge that our understanding is limited.

So for 2017, I hope that you will join me in these two resolutions. Let's seek to understand as much as we can about God, and enjoy the beauty of a God who can never be fully understood.

This post is taken from my personal blog; see more here