Why Does God Treat Me So Poorly?

This title is a question that all pastors invariably hear. Sooner or later, during a trial or hardship, someone asks the question. My (secret) reactions and public responses vary as I work out my salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God is at work in my own life to will and work His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Our trials vary. Our God does not (Hebrews 13:8).

Let me be clear. I am not unsympathetic or “unempathetic” towards suffering. My family and I are no strangers to what some would term “extreme” suffering and hardship over these last 8 years (and long before to be honest). But that said, our suffering is relative and God never gives us more than He will enable us to handle or survive (1 Corinthians 13:8). But sometimes in the midst of hardship and suffering we lose perspective when in the middle of the storm (read Habakkuk, Lamentations, and or Job).

Why does God treat me (us?) so poorly? We read in Genesis 6 about Noah that Noah found grace in the eyes of God (Genesis 6:8). We read that we are saved by grace (God’s undeserved favor) and not by our performance (Ephesians 2:8-9). We read God so loved the world that He sent His one and only son that whosoever believes in Him has eternal life (John 3:16).

Can I ask you a question? Where do you live? Do you live in the USA? Do you live in Europe? Do you live in a “Third World Country?” Do you live in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, or Iran? China? Do you have two arms and two legs? Regardless of your answer, if you are a born-again Christian, then you have all you really need for the next 750,000 years… salvation… an eternity in heaven, where God will wipe away every tear.

In our comfortable age, some people think that being stuck in a traffic jam for an hour or so is suffering. There are Christians in some parts of India, an increasingly totalitarian place, where being beaten, killed, or raped for your faith is suffering. Some in China, where organs are harvested off of live dissidents for sale to Westerners, think they are suffering.

Sometimes we need a bit of a wake-up call. A jolt. That’s kind of what I’m doing here. As Christians, when our brothers and sisters suffer hardship, we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15). And as Paul writes elsewhere we are to encourage the weak and help the fainthearted—and this particularly pertains to those who are suffering. However, is it possible that your suffering is a gift? That God wants to employ you to encourage others?

Finally, have you ever considered that this life is short and eternity is long and your eternal life in Christ is far better than you deserve? Have you considered that though the wages of sin is death (and far worse) God has given you eternal life and that you are right this moment receiving from God far better than you could ever, ever deserve? Maybe you should rephrase the question as you reorient your thinking. Instead, ask, “Lord, why do you treat me as well as you do and how can I use this hardship to glorify you, encourage others, and grow in grace and wisdom in the process?” Think about it. And remember… there are others in this world in this present age who have it “far worse.” Give thanks to God that He has not gifted you with their struggles.

When the Church Doesn't Know What a Church Is...

1 Tim. 3:14-15   I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 

What is “the Church?” What is a church? When was the last time you gave that question much (any?) thought? These days, most people don’t give the idea much, if any, thought at all. And that’s not just people in dead and dying denominations like the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, USA, or the Presbyterian Church, USA, who close thousands of churches a year because they jettisoned the Bible half a century ago or longer. This includes so-called “Bible Teaching Churches” or “Evangelical Churches.”

Many confuse “Christianity” or Christendom with the Church or a Church. College students think that attending a Bible study on campus or participating in CRU, InterVarsity, is “church.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality, these should be, or once were, evangelistic organizations trying to reach college students. Now, these parachurch organizations act as if they are the church, or they are churches. They are not… not even close. For one, they are often student-led, which means no one is qualified as an elder or spiritual leader. Second, they have to be so broad that they don’t stand for much “convictionally” except the gospel, and most aren’t sure what the gospel is particularly CRU.

Parachurch organizations… What does that mean? Supposedly, they are supposed to “come alongside the church.” That’s what is implied by the Greek word “para.” In reality, most do not. They have bloated bureaucracies. They have “staff.” They need money… lots of it. They have boards and donor relations (like a museum). What once began as associations of churches coming together for a common cause morphed into something that was unaccountable to the local church, siphoned off resources from the local church, and competed with the local church for people, resources, etc. They are almost like denominations. All these once served the local church, but now, in some odd way, the local church serves them.

What they don’t realize is that as they drain off the blood supply from the local church, they are sawing off the limb that they are sitting on. Where do their administrators come from? The local Church. Where do seminary professors and denominational officials come from? The local church. Where did their seed money come from? The local church.

Who makes this sad state of affairs possible? The local church. What is the local church? People who confuse it with a charity like the United Way, Compassion International, or the Humane Society.

The Church is something else according to Paul, according to Jesus. It is the pillar and support of the truth, it is Christ’s bride. All too often, people “rob Peter to pay Paul by diverting their giving to parachurch organizations that are not the church but maybe Christian charities from the church. Buildings fall apart, staff is underpaid, ministries are understaffed, and people become frustrated because the church isn’t doing enough.

You give to ministries through the church. You don’t give to ministries and the church. Each local congregation prioritizes its missionaries, its outreaches, etc. These priorities are approved or rejected by church leadership. And the church supports ministries outside the church in this way. Why? Because they have access to more facts and real needs than you do as an individual. The aggregated giving makes a greater impact than your individual giving can. We call this storehouse giving.

If you can’t trust your leadership to do this, then you should diligently find a church whose leadership you can trust and move your ministry there. If your church isn’t making “budgeting giving” and you are giving outside the church, then you’ve clearly misunderstood the church and your responsibility to the church. When your church is running surpluses, then you can give above your support (tithes, offerings, etc.) if you must give outside the local church.

When the church doesn’t know what it is, people neglect their support of the local church (that’s financial support). Invariably, the 20% carries the ball for the other 80% in giving. If you’re in the 80% it’s time to do your part, giving wise. If you are in the 20%—don’t give more. Let these others do their part.

An old pastor friend of mine, a mentor, really began making it a practice to check the service and the giving of chronic complainers. What do you think he learned? 90% of the time, those most dissatisfied (those who complained the most) served the least and gave the least, if at all. I was aghast and challenged him on this. He asked me for chapter and verse for my position. “Well, I said… it just seems wrong!,” I said.

He smiled and said something about the squeaky wheel. Then he told me to try it. I employed this practice once only to find this individual I was dealing with who could not be satisfied: (1) did little in the way of service; (2) had lifetime giving over 15 years of under $300. He clearly didn’t know what the church was. He thought the church was there to serve him, not realizing that, as the church, he was here to serve others. The Church is not a country club. It doesn’t belong to you. You belong to it as a slave of Christ. Jesus gives us the proper mindset in Luke’s gospel:

Luke 17:7-10   “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Take some time to read your Bible and understand the Church. Want to read a book about a healthy church? Read “9 Marks of a Healthy Church” by Mark Dever. And when you’ve done all you can as the church to understand the church, realize that at best, you and I, in Jesus’ eyes, are unworthy servants who have only done our duty (see above). But by His grace we are saved to serve, give, and sacrifice in your local church. Think about it.

Breaking Free From Porn (2 of 3)

Last time we discussed, to no one’s surprise, that porn is harmful. We noted the many ways that porn harms and kills, literally, spiritually, and otherwise. It is not a victimless crime but a crime with many victims, from the perpetrator, or porn user, to those on film and those related to the user and those associated with the making of porn.

 Porn is a crime against God, nature, and all participants. It fuels the illicit human trafficking “industry,” and it is a gateway drug, for lack of a better term, into more lurid and perverse types of behavior. We described it as slow-motion suicide and slow-motion murder. Feeding the porn industry brings about death to others, and your willing participation results in the slow murder of others. It is slow-motion suicide because you die through the death of a thousand cuts as you sear your conscience, kill your soul and moral compass, and eventually, everything you say you hold dear. Porn, as we discussed, creates a physiological reaction that increasingly requires more to satisfy the hormonal responses it makes in your body to the point that more and more porn, like more and more drugs, is needed to fulfill the “addiction.”

 Here’s where we must be careful. Our culture tries to destigmatize our wrong moral choices and their effect by often giving them a medical-sounding label (like addiction). As we discussed and must reiterate, “addiction” (some call this a really bad habit or besetting sin) often results from bad moral choices. It is part of a sin and its consequences equation (Romans 6:23). Our moral choices have consequences.

 If you want to beat this addiction, then you first must “really want to.” There are no half-measures. There is no easy way out. What’s involved? It’s easy to describe; however, it is challenging to implement and maintain.

 Step One: take responsibility. Let’s be clear. You’ve sinned and sinned willingly. All the 12-step meetings or Sex Addict Anonymous Meetings in the world will make no difference if you don’t call it what it is: sin. It is not a sin against a “higher power.” It is a sin against the One True God. Fundamental to having the power to change is to know personally the God of change, Jesus Christ. Gospel. ABC. I may have offended you earlier by referring to porn users as perpetrators or the high-tech version of a Peeping Tom. Taking responsibility involves coming to terms with these ideas as fact. You are engaging in a perverse voyeurism by choice; the fault is yours. You cannot blame shift. You must take responsibility and accept responsibility for your actions. This moves us to our next step.

Step Two: pursue and accept accountability. While your knee-jerk reaction is toward secrecy, you cannot manage this crisis alone. If you could, then you would not have this habituated sin. You would not be bound to these perverse, hurtful, and harmful urges.

 You need help. Proverbs tells us that when two walk along together and one falls into a ditch, the other pulls him out. Galatians 6:1-5 summarizes the need for accountability and to accept responsibility nicely. At this point, I’m addressing Christians as non-Christians will likely lack the framework and access to the supernatural ability to begin to grapple with this.

Gal. 6:1-5   Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

 What’s going on here? In this scenario, one has either been detected (caught) with a sin problem or is caught in it in the sense that they are trapped in it or by it (v. 1). Others come to his or her aid to help him or her break free from this problem (v. 1b). And they do so or are to do so with a spirit or attitude of gentleness. Why is this? The answer is found in 1c: “Keep watch on yourself unless you find yourself in the same or similar mess or condition (“By the grace of God there go I...”). Notice the call to handle the sinner with gentleness. There is a kind of tentativeness rather than a harsh condemnation. The long road of repentance will have fits and starts.

 Seek responsibility, not anonymity. For more on this, read Psalm 32 about the blessings of admitting one’s sin and confessing it and the peace that comes. It begins, “How blessed is the man...” (remember David wrote this as a hymn of worship for the Temple):

Psa. 32:1-6  Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3   For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 5  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 6 Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found...

There’s no hiding this problem... You must admit it, confess it, address it (to God and others). You must seek accountability. You’ll need help. Most cannot do it on their own. Seeking accountability and taking responsibility means going to a group of trustworthy people who are not sentimentally attached to you (lest they be tempted to cut you slack—slack is not what you need, and it is not the same as grace or mercy). God to your pastor or ask for an appointment with an elder—or ask to get on the agenda for the following elders’ meeting. Disclose your sin problem to them and ask for prayer and accountability. With their support, it’s time to take action.

 Taking action. Here’s where taking responsibility and accepting accountability merge and strengthen. Arrange to text the group daily that you are “clean” and free of porn. This is a simple, mechanical, and practical step that you can concretely take. I’ve used this with drug addicts and others. It doesn’t require a lot of your time or theirs. It involves daily accountability. It involves your initiative and commitment. They do not necessarily respond to this text—unless you don’t send it or unless you engage in porn. Your text could say, “Clean of porn and sexual sin in the last 24 hours. This text could come at the end of the day or first thing the next morning.

 There should be a separate text regarding your spiritual disciplines. Invariably, those who do not seem to win the battle against porn have a lack of discipline on multiple levels. First, there’s often a problem of sporadic or shallow bible reading, devotionally speaking. Second, there is an absence of prayer. With these comes a lack of meditation on God’s word with an eye toward application. Many times, such folks are adrift.

 Taking action involves discipline and structure. You’ve got to establish a holy routine and stick with it and stick to it. You may only hit these four days or six days a week. But keep at it. In time, it will take hold.

 Taking action means embracing consequences. But... warning: It’s all up to you in the end in one real sense. You can choose failure. You can choose to lie, misrepresent, and or cut yourself some slack. Don’t lie by text. If you miss a text, explain yourself. If you fail to choose righteousness over porn. Admit it.

 Choose consequences. One of the challenges of the psychological model is that there are few, if any, consequences because there are schools, streams of psychoanalysis, and “therapy” which do not believe either in sin or guilt. This is why we see people in therapy for decades with little or no change. There must be consequences for a lack of change—a lack of repentance. If you spend time in Ephesians 4 or Colossians 3, you see the work and pattern of biblical change... the so-called putting on or putting off. A lack of progress should have consequences.

 You should set milestones or timetables. There should be zero tolerance for your sin. If you were newly saved and a converted serial killer, would allowances be made for your desire to kill? Of course not. There should be no allowance or tolerance for giving up, throwing in the towel, or lying.

 Milestone number one could be texting faithfully for six months. Implicit in this is keeping “clean” for six weeks and then six months. Add to this Bible reading and prayer. You are putting off and putting on, “Let the one who steals steal no longer that he may do something good with his hands...” (Ephesians 4:28).

 Taking action means “spending” all your time wisely. All your time... wisely... spending. Think of time as money. You’ve heard the old saying, “Time is money.” Budget your time so that you don’t have too much downtime on your hands to waste on porn. Keep busy.

Seek, if possible, opportunities to serve and worship if you are in a local church. Investigate small groups. Show members hospitality. Investigate Sunday Schools or Fellowship Groups. Volunteer. Get connected and fill up the calendar where and as appropriate.

 Keep track of your efforts in a journal. It is in this journal that you engage in added prayer through letters to God. This way, you can track your thinking and debrief yourself (and others if necessary). This can be very encouraging as you see how often you begin to pray and pray. You can also see problems start to develop when you neglect spiritual disciplines, like prayer and Bible reading.

 Taking action is both positive and negative. Add activities. Add service. Add accountability. Embrace accountability. Seek it. BUT there is a negative or subtraction aspect: there are people, places, and things in your life that have to go. Jesus puts it this way in dealing with low-tech pornographic thinking in the 1st century AD:

 Matt. 5:27-30   “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right-hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

 Detach and discard. You’ve got to get rid of stumbling blocks in your way (and protect others from stumbling blocks). Changing habits often involves changing friends, locations, and past times. Think of it this way... “drunks shouldn’t go to bars...” And “drunks shouldn’t hang out with drunk friends. Toss the things, even the people, that “cause” or tempt you to sin.

 These are all steps in a walk of repentance. While you’ve got to take the initiative to put one foot in front of the other, there are spiritual family (accountability partners) who support you in prayer and outright encouragement.

 Take action now. Often, people spend too much time planning and thinking and too little time doing. Be biased toward action. Get after it now!

 Is breaking free of porn this easy? Is change really this simple? It can be. Quitting porn takes work. It is difficult, though not impossible, to “quit.” There are physiological urges that will come. Sin is crouching at the door, but you must rule over it, and you can in the power of the Holy Spirit, with a mind informed by the word of God and the people of God coming alongside you.

 Get started by building your plan and sticking to it. Again, difficult doesn’t mean impossible. Have hope! And begin the journey of repentance and change. The road ahead will be bumpy but the endpoint of the journey can be glorious!

Next week: Helping those who struggle with porn

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Porn as Slow-Motion Suicide, installment #1:

This first installment will be very painful for some to read and for that, I’m sorry. It’s hard to say these things, harder still, I’m sure, to read them. But this has to be said before we get into helping those caught in the black widow’s web of porn.

Porn is harmful. It takes something natural and beautiful, bending its purpose into shapes and variations foreign to the intended design. Sexual pleasure is intended for the intimacies of the marital bond. It is deeply personal or was intended to be. It was designed as a private affair. Porn violates all these foundational aspects of sexual intimacy. Sexual contact is to be voluntary between consenting adults—in a marriage. Characteristically, there is some attraction. Sex is also intended for procreation, the birth of children. This is not the case with porn. Porn violates all this.

Porn is voyeurism. Typically, porn involves a spectator who, rather than peering through a window like a yesteryear’s “Peeping Tom,” is peeping in through a camera lens or a screen of some sort. The actual participants may not know one another, may have different (opposite) sexual orientations, and are prostituting themselves for money. They may never have met before; likely, their names are aliases or “stage names.”

Let us not forget human trafficking. Many of the participants in porn videos are women, little girls, and little boys who have been kidnapped and exploited in unspeakable ways. They are performing sexual acts with others against their will (and well-being).

Today, our society has primarily legalized porn. In Hollywood, we have “the adult film industry.” Where prostitutes are having sex on camera for money.  None of which is natural. None of this is normal. Don’t kid yourself.

Above all, understand that there are “Designer Specifications” for sexual intimacy, and virtually every aspect of the porn industry violates these “specs.” At every level, porn is involved in some criminal activity—morally, if not legally. But porn isn’t about morals. It’s about death. Porn is slow motion suicide and murder.

Porn stimulates something in us that is progressively unhealthy. It’s like a cancer eating away at us from the inside. Porn creates a world, for one, that does not exist and cannot be had. Porn stimulates a part of the brain that creates a hormonal response that becomes progressively stronger and insatiable over time. It’s the same response that gambling addicts (whatever an addict is) have. It’s not unlike a runner’s high. Those who abuse drugs know about this. We could spend time on the science, but the science isn’t the issue.

The porn fantasy world brings death to normal, healthy relationships between men and women, husbands and wives. When a man makes a choice to use porn, they are one step closer to adultery. They may ask, wish, or fantasize that their spouse engages in practices they see on screen that their spouse won’t do. They want them to replicate some action or activity they saw as they peeped in on the people prostituting themselves on camera. Bizarre and unfair comparisons often occur. Resentments are born and hatched. Intimacy at all levels does not go unaffected. The Peeping Tom develops a double life.

Going back to the hormonal or endocrine response, porn triggers something physiological in the body. This is where the addiction terminology comes in. And this is where there is the temptation to treat porn as a disease—something beyond our control.

Choices have consequences. Buy crack, heroin, meth, or even marijuana, and you have stepped through a door that leads to harm. You are willingly doing something with and to your brain and body that will lead to a physical dependence on this drug. You made a moral choice that will have consequences. The fault is yours. The responsibility is yours. As children, we learn that hot stoves burn. As thinking adults, we know that meth, crack, etc. (anything that affects our faculties and decision-making) has (at the very least) the potential for great harm. Eighty-five (85%) percent of the homeless people account for such moral, self-inflicted decisions. The same is true with porn.

Like drugs, porn, with its peculiar sexual urges, is progressive.  It tends to leave its perpetrators unsatisfied and craving more. It creates an itch that can never be scratched enough. The more porn you “do” to more porn you want. Your sex drive, married or single, becomes about gratifying you, often to the harm of others. We’ll develop this more later.

Talk to anyone who’s experienced porn for any length of time. They graduate to other levels of porn. Someone once winced and called this a progression to “abnormal porn.” “Abnormal porn...” let that sink in. Is there such a thing as normal porn? What does this look like?

Perhaps they start with heterosexual porn between two adults. Maybe they go beyond this to orgiastic porn with multiple partners and same-sex participants. At first, they feel shocked, maybe a tinge of shame and self-loathing—but there’s always a thrill at some level. The abnormal becomes normal as their conscience dies, their soul becomes seared, and they need, they want, more. Many, if not most, will eventually plumb the depths of other forms of porn. They may gratify their desires vis-à-vis their own promiscuity, which is not without its consequences (STD’s, including AIDS). They, in turn, infect others. There’s always harm. There’s always... always... collateral damage.

Many perpetrators or peepers take their voyeurism to the next level. Some become peeping Tom types in a more literal and risky sense. Others graduate to child porn, bestiality, violent porn (people do violence to one another or a victim who may be sex trafficked), or some other extreme. There are worse forms, but we will stop here.

Some become pedophiles, which society and the media now try to reclassify as Minor Attracted Adults (i.e., would-be child molesters). Porn is to the body and soul like the poison arsenic, which in small amounts is seemingly not lethal, except that it can build up in the body over time to become lethal. So it is with porn.

Porn builds up in the body and soul over time. It kills the conscience, numbing it to the point it has little normal sensation or feelings. It disables the moral compass, affecting choices and decisions. One becomes morally lost. It destroys reason. It destroys relationships. Careers. Children.

In my counseling ministry, I’ve met individuals who were exposed to porn as young as 8 or 10. Because porn is so readily available on the internet and nowadays, at least in California, in more than a few public school curricula, children are scarred for life from an early age, apart from divine intervention.

One’s participation in porn, in one way or another, contributes to a variety of moral crimes. They create a market for the exploitation of victims of sex traffickers. Participation in porn funds all kinds of evil. There are extreme cases where the proclivity for porn leads the perpetrator to commit sex crimes, from peeping in windows to inappropriate contact with unwilling victims, whether little children, strangers in a crowd, or crimes of sexual violence (like rape and incest).

Porn involves death by inches, death by a thousand cuts. You are killing yourself and others through collateral damage. That’s why porn is slow-motion suicide. Is there hope? There is! Is the road easy? It’s not. It’s difficult, but difficult does not mean impossible. True enough, the wages of sin is death... but the free gift of God is eternal life (Romans 6:23). There is help. There is hope. There is Divine Intervention.

Are there Christians struggling with porn? Contrary to popular mythology and urban legend, porn is not “every man’s battle.” However, there are more involved in porn than one might imagine but fewer than we are led to believe. We must be wary of popular Christian literature inadvertently “normalizing” porn. That’s a suicidal tendency, too—a new normal. Like homosexuality or transgenderism or “Minor Attracted Adults” gaining currency as normal in our culture.

Are you struggling with porn? What can you do now? Number 1: don’t see yourself as a victim. Don’t see yourself as “sick.” You haven’t caught a cold or COVID; like a crack addict, you’ve made decisions that come back to haunt and harm. BUT... you can also make new decisions and chart a new course. But make no mistake, you are a perpetrator. All sinners are, and pornography is a sin. It is a sin against God, humanity, and “nature.” Also, know that your situation is serious but not hopeless. As the LORD asked Abraham and Sarah when He told them they were going to have a son in their old age, “Is there anything impossible for the LORD.” Similarly, Jesus remarked that with God, nothing is impossible, even if you have faith the size of a mustard seed.

The question is, do you want change? Do you really want it? In the end, it is up to you. There is help available, real help. We’ll get into this next time.

Significance and Implications of Asking God "Why?"

This post may not sit well with some people. This is one of those difficult topics that we may know the answer to in our heads (and then again… maybe not) but not in our hearts. This occurred to me during devotions with my wife over Christmas.

Therefore, consider this a Christmas and New Year post. I am technically behind on both. One of my favorite Christmas (incarnation) verses is Galatians 4:4-5:

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Why? Of course, we realize that  “… God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.“

But why then? Why not next year? Why not sooner? Sure, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent for His Son…” How did God determine the fullness of time? Why was this the right time? Could God not have done it sooner? By now, you are probably wondering what I’m up to. This brings us to Romans…

Do we have the right to ask, “Why?” In a different context, in Romans chapter nine, the Holy Spirit, through the pen of the Apostle Paul, addresses such a question.:

20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay… (Romans 9:20-21)?

How often, when we are feeling spiritual about the happy, mysterious ways of God, do we say things like “God’s ways are above our ways… His thoughts are above our thoughts… (Isaiah 55:8-9)?” We routinely say that God is all-knowing, all-wise, and His will is perfect. We say His perspective is wider, eternal and ours is so limited.. so narrow. But do we really believe it?

Our confidence in God’s wisdom and goodness can shift when adversity comes our way. At a previous church, someone told me a relative was “mad at God” because the young man’s 90-something-year-old grandmother passed away—and so he asked, “Why did God take her when He did?” You might say the obvious answer is something like, “Wow… she was in her 90s after all.” Implicit in your answer is that God was not in the wrong for what He did in taking the grandmother. Such a “case study” is an easy one. What if God takes away your job, your health… a child, or a spouse? My health?

Who are we to question God’s intelligence, morality, sense of timing, purpose, and character (Romans 9:20-21)? That’s what is bound up, packaged (baked into the cake), when we ask God, “Why?” Implicitly, when one is mad at the One True God, we are setting ourselves up as His judge. We are doing like Adam and Eve: believing a lie about God (Satan suggested God was holding them back (Genesis 3:4-5).

Getting back to the young man who was mad at God for taking his 90-something grandmother… Would he (would we) like to pick and choose the date of a loved one’s death? In other words, “Would we like to play God?” What if God shortens your life (my life) through a chronic illness? Death, illness, and other things in this world remind us, like the grandmother’s death, that life is short. We only have so much time, and we should employ it well. There is a reason and a season for everything that happens on this fallen, broken word that sin has disfigured (Ecclesiastes 3:1-22). Humanity broke the world (Romans 5:12), and God is making all things new through the person and work of Jesus Christ in His unfolding drama of redemption. There is no random change. Everything happens for a reason. You are no accident. You have a purpose. God raised you up and planted you here. Maybe we are asking the wrong question (Why?).

This New Year, maybe ask, “What now, what next, Master?” As my battery and your battery runs down, how will we make the most of the time we have left? For starters, we need to be trusting God even when life hurts. Everything that happens to you happens for a good reason (Genesis 50:20). Each experience, “good or bad,” happens for a reason. God is equipping you where you are to do greater and greater things (James 1:2-5). Maybe make it your New Year’s resolution to trust God and put to use the lessons learned from suffering in the service of God and others. And just maybe God will use you in the lives of others to bring them to Christ or to comfort them with wisdom learned the hard way (James 1:5-8). Don’t fall into the devil’s trap of distrusting God. Flee into His waiting arms as you suffer hardship or experience setbacks, and this year will be different than any other.

What About a Christmas Tree?

Christmas is all about redemption. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us… the only begotten God from the Father’s side He has made Him known… Good news of great joy which will be for all people… For unto you a Savior (the Savior) is born: Christ the Lord. Christmas is about redemption. Salvation. And yet Christmas these days has been complicated by culture, commercialism, and so many other factors.

Many yearn to get back to the basics of Christmas. I know I do. Some years back, I was “confronted” by a brother in Christ who was troubled about Christmas Trees. For him, it was another complication. He asked me about pagan Roman holidays. He spoke of Druid Rites in ancient England. Instead, I pointed him to Martin Luther. Martin Luther is credited for the first Christmas tree.

Luther was the father of the Protestant Reformation. He despised statues, idols, and anything that detracted from Christ. And yet he is credited for the first Christmas tree. Luther was also a poet, a musician, an artist and is also credited with writing the first children’s curriculum.

And the Christmas Tree? As I understand it, the star at the top represented The Star the wise men followed. Beneath an evergreen, which represented a night sky—beneath which he placed a nativity scene. Luther apparently cooked all this up for his children. Supposedly, the candles (lights today) represented angels or stars. So, what about a Christmas tree at Christmas? Go for it or abstain from it. And make sure you let others enjoy theirs.

Sure, we live in a post-Christian neopagan world where people often adopt all kinds of practices in their lives. But I don’t think you can blame the Druids for the Christmas Tree—or Roman Saturnalia. It’s more nuanced and complicated than that.

The Downgrade Continues: Loving Jesus But Not the Church

Some time ago, there was this naive or ill-informed video by a teen where he said he loved Jesus but not the Church. His reasoning demonstrated a commonplace biblical illiteracy. People love to criticize the church, not go to church (we’ve talked about this before). “I was hurt at a church, and so I can’t (won’t?) return to another church. I was hurt on a playground once in kindergarten, but I later returned. Perhaps you had bad service in a restaurant? Do you still eat out? Still eat? You get the picture. Christians love the church. Why? They love God’s people. NonChristians do not. I can’t make an elephant like a steak. It’s not in its nature. Birds fly. Fish swim. Horses run. Christians worship—individually and collectively. It’s who they are. It’s what they do (read Hebrews 10:24-25). Psalm 100 speaks of the excitement God’s people experience as they prepare to worship together. Nehemiah 8 describes the determination God’s people had to come together to hear His word taught and carefully explained.

Someone once accused me of loving the church too much. I found that odd. Paul described his love for the church as that of a nursing mother (1 Thess. 2:7). Jesus said a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

What is the Church? It’s been called the body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. Jesus gave up His life on the cross for His people, the Church. I’ve never seen Jesus in person. One day, I hope to do so. I have, however, seen His bride. How could I not love the Bride of Christ? The Church is the physical representation of Christ on earth. To neglect her is to neglect Jesus. To denigrate or minimize her is to minimize or disrespect Jesus.

I recently preached a sermon series on rethinking church. You can find it in our sermon archive. In this series I explained that if you don’t love the church, then you don’t love Jesus. To dismiss the importance of the Bride of Christ is to dismiss the Groom (Jesus). Where did I get an idea like that? From Jesus. What we do for the church. The love we show for His bride, we show to Him. You can’t separate one from the other—no matter how much you’d like to find an excuse to do so.

The Downgrade: Reimagining the Grace of God

I had a spirited conversation with a younger pastor on the contemporary Church’s (and the contemporary Christian’s) view of the grace of God. His view, and I fully concur, is that many Christians, particularly younger adult Christians (he is a young adult, himself), see grace like a well-to-do father’s credit card.

You can just keep on charging because there is no “credit limit.” One’s conduct (i.e., one’s sin) is immaterial because you’ve believed in Jesus. So, you can live how you please. Such is the result of the downgrade we’ve been discussing over several blogposts-essays. If you are just joining the conversation, then you may wish to back up and start here.

Today, the idea is that you can sleep with your boyfriend or girlfriend so long as you’re “monogamous” because you are “under grace.” Because of “grace,” God overlooks the fact that you’re not married. Not!

In many ways, this understanding characterizes many in today’s church. In today’s church, pretty much anything goes because God’s grace is “greater than all your sin.” That’s pretty much a perversion of that old song and the grace of God.

I’ve been watching the documentary on the collapse of Hillsong Church (worldwide) and the destabilization of its denomination in Australia and New Zealand (Hillsong is an Assemblies of God Church). While the documentary is a soft hit-piece on Christianity, one of the most striking and undeniable features of the documentary—aside from the immorality of Hillsong’s leadership from day one—was its leadership’s brazen blindness to its own sinful logic.

When a married man (i.e., pastor) groped a young woman and she complained and asked for help. Hillsong’s founder explained that this was a stupid mistake. In his words, a young married man who was a little too drunk did something dumb. And so the young man was not fired. The victim of this young man’s sexual abuse was shamed as if it were her fault. She sought help. She was punished while the young married man was promoted. In their words, this man was shown grace instead of the door. Instead, Hillsong blamed the victim!

Blatant injustices aside, let’s return to Hillsong’s logic.  A ‘young married man’ who was “a little too drunk” “did something dumb.” What does “a little too drunk” mean? Biblically speaking, is there an acceptable level of drunkenness (cf Ephesians 5:18)? What about the qualifications for pastors in 1 Timothy 3? And then there’s the “a young married man...” terminology. What does that mean? Would it have been acceptable if he was a “young single man?” Are a man’s unwanted advances (of any kind) ever acceptable foisted upon a woman? What does “dumb” or “stupid” mean in a case like this? What does “mistake” mean? And what about his adultery? And grace? What is grace?

If you don’t understand grace, then you don’t understand sin. If you don’t understand sin, then you can’t understand grace. The calls into question one’s understanding of the gospel itself.

When you cheapen grace, you cheapen Christ’s agonies on the cross for your sin. If you want to understand the downgrade’s version of grace look no further than 1 Corinthians 5: 1-8, which begins with “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans...” Paul confronts an early version of “cheap grace” head-on. And, yes, there are pagans that behave with greater moral sensibility than some Christians. The Hillsong documentary cogently illustrates this.

Grace, as the old acrostic goes, is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” The sinner receives grace when she turns from her sin in repentance and faith and surrenders her will to Christ. After this begins the long march home to one’s heavenly home involving spiritual growth (progressive sanctification). The saved sinner struggles and strives for personal holiness according to the word of God. As it says in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, this involves putting off the old and putting on the new. And when you fail, God shows mercy (grace) because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to your account as you struggle and strive to please God.

Grace is not a license to sin. God is not your daddy who has given you a credit card that gives you a license to sin. For those who live like grace is a license to sin, you do well to dwell over the words of Christ in Matthew 7:21-23:

Matt. 7:21-3   “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Don’t cheapen the grace of God. Don’t be among the many who cheapen the grace of God on judgment day. Don’t presume upon the grace of God—it indicates a misunderstanding of the Gospel. And as Jesus points out in the passage above, that is something you cannot afford.

The Church as Convenience Store

We’ve all been to “Circle K’s,” “Quick Stops,” and “7-11’s.” You know. Convenience stores.

You zip in, get gas, and maybe a cup of coffee, then off to work or some other place. If you come at the same time every day, you might see a familiar face waiting at the counter in line. Maybe you see the same couple of clerks, too. You say, “Hi.” You say “Bye.” Or “How’s the family?” “How are the kids?” Sometimes you get more information than you asked for (we’ll get back to this later). Over time you build relationships. Sorta.

Convenience stores. Dash in. Dash out. Get your needs met. There’s some human contact. Sort of a relationship. But not too much. Convenience stores are there for you when you need them.

Gas. Coffee. Maybe even a doughnut. Sometimes you pick up other extras, like batteries. It’s not like Costco or a Grocery Store where you really go for the necessities. You need Costco. You need Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. Convenience Stores are different.

Sometimes you visit other convenience stores. You’re on the road or on the other side of town. One day, after a few years, a few months, or even years something happens and you take your business elsewhere. A clerk says something you don’t like. There’s a change in décor. Who knows? It doesn’t sit well with you and boom, you’re gone. It is after all a convenience store. It’s there for your convenience.

In this next to the last installment on “The Downgrade,” we are going to compare the Convenience Store to the Local Church. If you are coming here for the first time, you might want to read the preceding blogpost-essays, starting here or just scroll down.

For many Christians today, the local church is a convenience store. It’s there for their convenience. Dash in, dash out. Drop the kids off in Children’s or Student Ministries, come to a service, and go. After a while, you begin to see familiar faces. You strike up relationships. And one day, you hear or see something you don’t like and you are gone. Like a convenience store. It never occurs to you that you may have misunderstood something. Or that you need to grow spiritually beyond your comfort zone... or that following a few friends who don’t want to be challenged is a bad idea. After all, the church is here for you... Or is it?

Aren’t you there for Christ? Aren’t you there to serve others? Aren’t you there to be challenged? Speaking of being challenged, a church is a family. Membership is like a marriage. And the church, any church is not like a convenience store. Would you walk out of a marriage without a word? Abandon children without self-examination—or let them know that you’ve gone?

How did the Western Church become a convenience store? Read the previous essays.

What can be done? Read the coming essays. For now, think about your take on “church” and maybe even the gospel and the Bible. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and so is your opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven.

Note: the final essays are “What is the Church and Who is it for? And ” “What is Grace?” Stay tuned.

The Member Downgrade Illustrated

Once again, if you are coming late to this discussion, you may need context. You can find it by reading the previous essays,  here and here

 The greatest tragedy of the current trajectory of many denominations and churches is what their choice of direction does to the person in the pew—the church member or attender. The shepherds not only fail to protect the sheep (the people entrusted to their care), but they harm them directly. How? They fail to equip them sufficiently.  They fail to equip them with the tools to make sense of their existence through the lens that God provides them (aka the Bible). That’s part of the harm of “we are about the gospel?”

 There used to be an advertisement whose punchline was, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” An uneducated mind never reaches its potential. An untrained soul may never reach the right eternal destination. Or its children might miss (as well as succeeding generations).

 The newfound love of a winsome, minimalist Christianity (devoid of the details of the faith) foists a crippling level of spiritual ignorance upon its people.

Regrettably, things gradually (think of the proverbial frog in the kettle) go from order to chaos. From fact to feeling. The emphasis of “the gospel only (red letters only in disguise)” neglects the whole counsel of God’s word. A congregation goes from newborn Christians to lukewarm Christians to unbelief over a series of decades and generations.

 That’s the story of the United Methodist Church. That’s the story of most denominations. And too many churches. I saw this meme the other day which shows the mindset that results from this mushy Christianity that is open to everything but biblical relevance.

The "Member" Downgrade

If you are coming late to this series of blog posts, you may wish to start here and catch up as this is part three of a series. If not, this can serve as somewhat of a standalone.

With the tremendous 21st-century downgrade of the Church comes a parallel downgrade of the “average” church member’s understanding of God’s word and, with it, the downgrade of the Church’s leadership. You often see this when an elder “retires” from the board and plants himself in the pew. He seemingly chooses to retire from all ministry within the church, becoming a “pew sitter.”

The pew sitting-retired-elder malady is as it often accompanies the effort to downgrade our understanding of God’s word to the lowest possible denominator, the greater our ignorance of God’s word. Ignorance of God’s word leads to ignorance of God’s will and our place in the Church’s ministry. Churches end up with people and leaders who lack conviction because they lack any certainty about the meaning of God’s word and how to apply it. It’s mostly a pastor’s fault because of weak preaching and teaching. But the “member” is at fault, too. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:11-14).

The problem often begins at the pastoral level and elder level. Weak teaching leads to weak Christians. Weak teaching takes a toll over time. Our spiritual appetites and spiritual digestive tracts are degraded. Our spiritual nutrition is low. We prefer spiritual junk food. Biblical precision upsets our spiritual stomachs. We develop an appetite for fluff. We don’t want to be challenged. We want to be entertained.

Church folks become spiritually numb. Sadly, we often find good people preferring a sentimental Christianity. Kind of a “Hallmark Card Christianity.” It’s warm and fuzzy. It values friendship over facts. It values good feelings over truth. It asks the question, “Can’t we all just get along?” How would Jesus answer such a question? Jesus answered that question for us in Matthew’s gospel:

 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt. 10:34-39).

Take a look at verses 37-39. Friendship over facts. Family over Jesus. Where should our priorities lie? What does Jesus say?

Denominations, associations, and churches slowly decay when they pursue this downgraded minimalist Christianity—and God’s people suffer spiritual atrophy. A church slowly loses membership over the course of a few decades. No one really notices.

Spiritual flab becomes the new normal, the order of the day, and everyone is sort of at peace because all their friends are there. Then their children walk away from this flabby faith, but they cling to their sentimental Christianity in hope that their son or daughter’s peer-pressured campfire conversion at youth retreat will still get them into heaven despite their apostasy.

What’s next? Many become and remain comfortably numb... “we four friends and no more...” until Providence upsets their apple cart. Then they have choices to make. The narrow path or the wide path. Sometimes “easy” remains the order of the day. It’s a sad story that is repeated again and again in our culture as well as in too many churches in our community.

The 21st Century Downgrade Controversy

Before there was the 21st Century Downgrade Controversy, there was the “infamous,” but probably now forgotten, 19th Century Downgrade Controversy confronted by none other than Charles Haddon Spurgeon. What was Spurgeon’s issue? His issue was clarity, for one—or rather the lack of clarity... typified in his mind by a studied or practiced ambiguity. Spurgeon wrote:

“We cannot hold the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement and deny it;… we cannot recognize the punishment of the impenitent and yet indulge the ‘larger hope.’ One way or the other, we must go. Decision is the virtue of the hour.[1]”

 To quote one source, “Spurgeon was comfortable being in denominational fellowship with men with whom he held numerous disagreements on second-tier doctrinal matters and on social, political, and cultural issues as long as he shared basic agreement with them on matters that were essential to evangelical orthodoxy. However, Spurgeon believed that in order for true gospel unity to be authentic, there had to be a basic foundation of agreement on matters of primary doctrinal importance, particularly on those doctrines that were at the heart of the gospel itself.”[2]

 Spurgeon left the Baptist Union and was ultimately vindicated by history (although tarred and feathered by some of his contemporaries).

What’s that got to do with churches today? This isn’t so much a denominational issue as it was back then. It’s a larger, more troubling issue involving denominations, with an “s” and churches (you may wish to read the previous article here or simply scroll down).

 It works this way. In the late 20th century, in the midst of a number of controversies associated with both the Pauline and General Epistles, there emerged a group of Christians calling themselves “Red Letter Christians.” In summary, “Red Letter Christians” emphasized the teachings of Jesus found in the Gospels over the rest of Scripture. Somehow the words of Jesus, or rather the writings of the Gospels where they directly quote Jesus, are “more inspired” than the rest of the Bible. Ironically, there were no red letter renderings in the Greek Text. Red lettering of Jesus’ quotes is a recent innovation. And Jesus’ words are Genesis through the end of Revelation.

Loosely associated with this stream of thought was a movement in the direction of Christians “unhitching” from the Old Testament, championed today by Andy Stanley but in the past by Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick and Stanley’s thesis was (is) that Jesus and the Apostles, like James, sought to disconnect from the Old Testament, and so should today’s church. The obvious problem with this notion is that Jesus quotes the Old Testament as authoritative more than anyone in the New Testament (cf. Matthew 19:1-6). Paul follows as a close second (just read Romans) and Peter also quotes the Old Testament, “’the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of the Lord stands forever,’ and this is the word that was preached to you (1 Peter 1:24-5—quoting Isaiah 40:8).”

The next manifestation of this 21st Century Downgrade is churches and denominations being “Gospel-Centered.” What could be wrong with that? That’s like the Christian version of “mom, apple pie, and the national anthem.” But…

While in many cases, there’s nothing wrong with being Gospel-Centered. In other cases, we find a practiced or studied ambiguity that is problematic. Increasingly, this new mantra relies on a perversion of Augustine’s principle of “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” The realm of non-essentials keeps expanding. One wonders if “in all things charity” should be modified to include “in all things clarity” in order that we could understand what another’s meaning of “Gospel Centered” and what it really means.

It seems that the next step in this problematic 21st Century Downgrade is that today’s church should consider avoiding references to the Bible and emphasize belief in the resurrection of Jesus. What could be wrong with that? That “sounds good.”

Stanley and others argue that the Bible contains too many divisive things, so just start with the resurrection power of Jesus Christ to change your life. Some call this transformational Christianity. This is a positive Christianity or a winsome Christianity. However, this increasingly leans more toward the mindset of self-improvement guru Tony Robbins or “your best life now...” We do well to define terms. Gospel centered and transformational increasingly have many meanings. It depends who you talk to.

Ultimately, here’s where the “downgrade” comes in. We are moving away from the theological-structural moorings of “the Good News” or “the Gospel” rooted into the whole counsel of God (while paying lip service to the Bible). Are we to base our “presentation” on an event that many say is not a historical fact? On what basis? You need the whole Bible to reason from faith to faith (Romans 1:17).

Unhitching the Gospel from the Bible may enable some to enjoy the broadest of all possible fellowship, building bridges over the widest possible gulfs, but it begs the question, “What is the Gospel?”

We must be careful not to build bridges to nowhere. Without the bad news of the Fall in Genesis 3, there is no good news of the Gospel. Without understanding the ramifications of the “wages of sin is death” there is no need for the gift of eternal life. And how then shall we live (skim Ephesians or Romans for insight). What about the challenges of today’s culture? How do we make sense of our existence (Psalm 119:105)?

Eventually, the resurrection story becomes just that, another story that is metaphor for something less—like “rebooting your life in your own resurrection (yes… believe it or not someone preached that sermon). And we know where that leads. It leads to a place that is neither winsome, transformational, or Gospel-Centered.

Let’s be clear… clarity in all things so that we can be biblical as an act of worship in our daily lives and as the gathered visible church.

 [1] C. H. Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel (London: Passmore and Alabaster, September 1887): 465.

[2] https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/blog-entries/what-was-the-downgrade-controversy-actually-all-about/