Unity

I was challenged in class today to make the first sermon that I ever give to church about unity. Unity is a huge deal in scripture, especially first Corinthians, but it appears to be much easier said then done. I can preach a sermon on unity and on how we need to have, and probably everyone would agree with me, but the question that would be left in the air is how exactly to have unity. Possible solutions that have been suggested for this problem are:

1) Realize that we really don't have problems. - This phrase is usually given as the easy out. It is desperate attempt at unity that falls short because in reality it is denial. Everyone knows that we should be unified, and that is easy to say until a real problem arises in the church over two conflicting doctrines or other issues. Therefore if these issues and problems are ignored and people pretend that they are not their the divisions are only worsened. To say that we can have unity by pretending that we have no conflicts in the church will ultimately lead to many more conflicts and divisions that are still not addressed.

2) Send those who do not believe like us away, there is another church for them. - In America we have a lot of churches. In a fifteen mile radius from downtown Dallas, there are over 3200 churches. Because of this we have a formula in place for when we disagree and have divisions, we simply go to another church. This doesn't solve any problems, but instead if the problems are out of sight then they are out of mind. Now I am not saying that there is no good reasons to have denominations, but what I am saying is that we see ourselves as having way to much freedom to switch churches whenever we feel like we are not "unified"with the body (and really most of the time what we mean is that we don't feel comfortable with the church). Since when is it permissible to leave your family and go to another family simply because it feels more comfortable there. However, this has been made easy, not only because of the average church goers view of church, but also because many times it is suggested by those in charge that if you do not believe like, there is another church for you.

These previous two solutions I clearly don't agree with, here is what I do agree with though.

3) Realize that we will disagree. The key to unity in my opinion is realizing that there are problems in the church and that at times we will have conflict. However, we don't have to panic over this conflict. If we continue to split churches over issues, then what we will end up with is exactly what we have, a lot of churches that think differently about different issues and that is what defines their church. So even if one side is much better and more Biblical, everyone still loses when the church splits because the opposing side is going to go make converts and bring them to their church, and so more people will believe their side and the battle is lost. Instead we need to be unified on the fact that we a Christians if we adhere to the core of the gospel based on the person and works of Christ. 
             On a side note though, acknowledging that we all have differences and will disagree only works if there are no super-Christians. If someone in the church is seen as a "super-Christian" then the crowd wants to follow everything that the "super-Christian" says. However, if we recognize that we are all sinners, and that none of us has it all together then it is possible for us to start working together as a unified church. A church cannot be unified if we start seeing some people as better Christians than us and some as worse. It's like judging the maturity of a two year old, no matter how mature they are they're still only two. The measure for maturity in the church is perfection in light of the works of Christ, and according to that standard we all (in a unified manner) fall flat on our faces.

So this is a call to unity, but unity can only be achieved among a bunch of sinners when we realize that no one is better than anyone else and that we will disagree on issues.
Filed under  //   conflict   problems   unity  
 

Guilt and the Christian

          Alright, so I'll do one more post today, but it's not from 1 Corinthians like I promised. I wanted to post this off of something my wife and I were talking about today. Guilt appears to be one of the only tools that Christians have left to motivate believer to be better Christians. It appears that the only thing that we know how to do when trying to disciple other Christians is the phrase, "Try harder." Now this can come out in many forms however I would like to address two.

1) "Work harder to be better Christian" - this is the motivational tool for many discipleship relationships. So the individuals meet together and a leader asks the question of, "did you do better this week in one or more of the following areas: pray, read, don't fall into sexual immorality, etc." The other people then respond with either a yes or a no, it doesn't really matter. Then the leader tells them something to the degree of "good, keep working hard to be a better Christian." So now the Christian can feel guilty about messing up (or better about themselves if they didn't) and they get to feel guilty that they are not trying hard enough. Often times, discipleship time with people that hold to this camp looks like a lot of schedules and goal setting for reading the Bible and praying a certain number of times during the week. If the goal isn't met, then this also gives another reason to feel guilty. 

2) "Let go and let God." - This is a crafty tool that looks like it is non-works based form of discipleship, but is exactly the opposite, an impossible task. Here's what I mean. Letting go is an action and the false concept behind it is "if I can just stop trying to fix my problems on my own, then God will come in with His supernatural powers and fix my problems for me." However, no one ever addresses the fact that it is impossible to stop trying to work on your problems, because then stopping work on a task is in itself a task. Therefore, when someone comes to another Christian with an issue, and the response is something to the degree of "just don't act and God will take care of it," not acting is an action and merely gives the Christian one more reason to feel guilty that now, not only are dealing with an issue, but now they are not even strong enough to let it go.

Too many times I have heard motivating messages at Christian events where the overall message of the speaker is "to be a better Christian just try harder." Try harder to have a better marriage, life, witness, outreach, but no matter how hard we try we just can't quite do it, or do it for long, or do it at all, and we feel worthless, or guilty, or excited at first for a fresh motivation, but after we fail we feel confused. However, what I see in scripture is that it is impossible to please God, even our best days are smelly rags to him. It is our worthlessness and helplessness that demonstrates God glory in saving us. We are growing in our sanctification, but that is not because of anything we do, but what God is doing. The main problem I have with the above phrases is that the focus is on "you." Stop the guilt because there is nothing you can do to become a better (or worse) Christian. Instead realize the freedom that you have in the fact that your existence is held in the hand of God.
Filed under  //   discipleship   guilt   let go and let god   works  
 

Identity Lost

           So for class I have had to do an outline of 1 Corinthians and make an argument for why Paul used every paragraph. Two things really jumped out at me that I hadn't really thought of before. The first is in regards to 9:19-23, where Paul says "to the Jew I became a Jew and to the Greek I became a Greek." The wrong thinking of the Corinthians that Paul is addressing when this section comes up is, "hey since I have Christian liberty, I can do anything I want." Paul response with this section is in essence, "No, with your liberty you have become a slave to Christ, and therefore you are not even allowed to have your own identity, but instead follow me, as I have lost my identity for the sake of saving a few." Later on in 1 Cor. 12 Paul is going to address the individuality of believers, but I think too many times we as Christians long to have our own identity that seperates us from the crowd, maybe so that we will be noticed and have our ideas heard, or possibly just to find self-worth in having an identity. However, because we are Christians we have given up our right to our own identity of sin for an identity founded in Christ that changes with new person we meet. I will save the second thing I learned for my next post.

Filed under  //   1 Corinthians   Christian rights   identity  

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