A Small Faith

If you’ve read AsF for any time at all, you are probably aware of our family’s struggle to stay or leave the church that we have attended for 16+ years. We’ve been visiting around some this summer. Frankly, it’s not our favorite thing to do, but it’s been beneficial. It has given us a little distance (not an unhealthy amount) which has allowed us to more accurately assess our current position. We’ve been able to step back a little, so to speak. It was nice to be back and see faces we haven’t seen in several weeks this morning, but our concerns about the teaching were confirmed a little. Here’s a snippet of what we heard (based on the first few verses of 1 John 5):

-”Salvation is the desired opportunity to live in the Kingdom of God, which enables us to experience life as we would never know it and takes us where we cannot go.”

-”God will take you on as a project.”

-”If we are born again, there should be a ‘genetic pass-down’ from our heavenly Father” [I'm not sure exactly what was meant here, there wasn't much explanation.]

-”If it’s a burden to keep God’s commands, check your love levels.”

-The culmination of our communion time was the song, “Living for Jesus.” We were instructed that if we really take the communion plate seriously, the first verse should be our response. It states, “Living for Jesus, a life that is true/Striving to please Him in all that I do;/Yielding allegiance, glad hearted and free,/
This is the pathway of blessing for me. ”

While none of this is absolutely incorrect theology, it seems to me to be shallow at best, and in places, it’s simply incomplete. I’m left feeling a little like the old lady on those old Wendy’s commercials.

As Christians, do we feel the need to put forward a more sanitized version of Christianity to the world? It’s like we have this image to maintain of a “blessed” life that is more attractive to the world. How that blessedness is defined depends on you particular context – money, the right job, well-behaved kids, good marriages, inner peace, joy and smiles through disaster, etc. Whatever they are, we use them to attract those outside the church to the “good” life.

What’s missing is that we are still a sinful people. We’ll admit this behind church walls but we tend to obscure it to the general public. But, I think they kinda know. The iMonk says this in a recent post talking about how young people view Christianity in a negative light :

At the heart of much Christianity is a strange irony: in a faith that requires us to confess, not avoid, the knowledge of our own sinfulness, we make it almost a fetish to find ways to blame unbelievers and non-believers for their low opinion of Christians.

So then, perhaps part of the solution is not to deny what we know to be true. This is not about flaunting our imperfections. But rather being honest that we’ve not yet arrived and it’s looking like a long trip down the road before we do. We need to get past offering principles and steps and move on to Jesus as our source of hope. He is the real difference and it’s too often that he’s treated as a step along the path to success. Paul says in Colossians 1:16-22 :

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

Jesus is not just a rung on the ladder of spiritual success. He is the first and foremost in God’s plan for not just redeeming us, but for all of creation. When we see him in his proper place, we must boast in him. Not in the supposed “blessed” life we feel we have to put forward to look attractive to the outside world. Besides, if iMonk is right that plan’s not working quite like we’d like anyway.

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about Mike Yaconelli. Brian and I used some Youth Specialties stuff back when we worked with the youth a few years back, but I’d never heard him speak or read anything of any real substance that he had written. This week would have marked his 65th birthday, and I have seen a YouTube video tribute to him posted on several sites in memory of him. (It’s a great video – search “Mike Yaconelli tribute.” It’s worth your time.) Watching that video made me curious what else Mr. Yaconelli has said. Here are a few other quotes from a really interesting man who loved Jesus enough to speak the truth when the truth needed saying:

It’s not about perfection; it’s about our intimacy with God, or our connection, our relationship with God. Once we get through that, once we realize that we can be imperfect, flawed, broken; those kinds of things are the ingredients of spirituality.

We’d like to have it all neat and orderly. We want to be able to measure it and control it, but the reality is that Jesus is a mystery. The Christian faith is a mystery. The disciples spent their entire time following him going, “Uhh, what the heck are you doing? We don’t understand what you’re doing and we don’t know why you’re doing it.” And when he would explain why he was doing it, they still didn’t get it.

I am beginning to understand that faith is not the way around pain, it is the way through pain. Faith doesn’t get rid of the opposition, it invites it over for dinner. Faith doesn’t give you the winning point at the last second, it ties the game and sends you into overtime. Faith doesn’t give you the solution, it forces you to find it.

The power of the Church is not a parade of flawless people, but of a flawless Christ who embraces our flaws. The Church is not made up of the whole people, rather of the broken people who find wholeness in a Christ who was broken for us.

I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

The grace of God is dangerous. It’s lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God’s grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn’t care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church.

For the Christian, there is no distinction between the sacred and secular. Everything a Christian does is an expression of his faith. He does not make choices based on the religious significance of the alternative. As a Christian he makes the choice that is a logical extension of the values he has derived from his faith…

We’re attempting to convince the world how good Jesus is by how great we are. This is precisely how Madison Avenue sells toothpaste, automobiles, and underwear. People don’t need any more images of success, wealth, and power; they’re surrounded already. What they need are their sins forgiven. What they need is healing. What they need is love.

The tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified. We aren’t afraid of God, we aren’t afraid of Jesus, we aren’t afraid of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a need-centered gospel that attracts thousands…but transforms no one.

I have very sensitive antennae for matters of grace. I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe it’s because talk of true grace – unpaid for, unpayforable grace (Thanks, Mike!) – is often just something we sing about in church on Sundays – if that. So when I read Jared Wilson’s thoughts this morning on what he calls “the new legalism,” I left with a smile on my face. Jared hits the nail on the head in several areas. I particularly liked these two paragraphs:

The real Gospel of grace, however, calls us to submit to each other out of reverence to God. A wife should submit to her husband not because her husband is deserving of being submitted to (because no husband really is), but because it honors God. A husband should sacrifice and serve his wife not because she deserves it, but because it is a reflection of how Christ loved us. The difference is that we do these good works — all good works — not because they will get us stuff or make us happy, but because they are done for and by and unto God Himself. They aren’t steps to __________; they are done out of reverence for Christ.

This is because the new legalism, for all its talk of grace and love and tolerance and anti-condemnation, is just like the old legalism in that it tells us not to be satisfied with Jesus. Don’t be satisfied with Jesus’ work on your behalf, it suggests. That’s not enough. Do more, be more, become more. Because the real goal is not satisfaction with Christ, but success in life. I can’t think of anything more “anti” the testimony of the New Testament. Health, wealth, prosperity, conquering dysfunction — the Bible just isn’t really concerned with this stuff. At least, not in the ways the modern church is.

You can find the whole thing here.