Urban Reformation

A friend of mine at work gave me a sermon to listen to this week.  Another friend of mine told me that he visited a church with teaching that was decent but possibly light on doctrine.  These things had the wheels spinning this week.  The friend form work, gave me a sermon from a guy I wouldn’t normally listen to, and I will leave names out for fear of side tracking the thoughts and discussion.

This simplistic church, what I mean by that is they stay with the very basics doctrinally. They are a bit more charismatic in nature than the ones I am more accustomed to, and yet in this sermon I heard the pulling down of high doctrine. The example he gave is someone approached him about going deeper theologically in his messages, the guy asking considered himself a student of theology. This pastor’s answer was if you don’t have the basics down yet how can you go deeper in theology? So his reply was, “How many people have you shared Christ within the past week or two?” Needless to say the pastor made it sound like the gentleman left like a puppy dog with his tail between his legs. He unfortunately never directly addressed the question but pointed at the shortcomings of those who go deep as his response to the question. This happens both ways, both parties point at the shortcoming of the other rather than point at their own short comings and strive to attain that as their goal in sanctification!

We unfortunately must all agree that there are shards of truth in the pastor’s thoughts although I believe that this is a false argument. I don’t believe the two things have to be mutually exclusive, in the sense that I believe that there can be high doctrine / theology and passionate evangelistic fervor for the lost and a love for men.

The gospel message which needs to be brought to all men, in all socio and economic classes demands there be a simplistic explanation of the Gospel. If this were not the case we would still be reading scripture in latin and the Word as we know it today would not exist. Yet man likes to pervert a good thing and make it something for which it was not intended, which in many cases, is lowering the bar for those who need to see that the bar doesn’t move for anyone, there are only differing intellectual entry points and the standard in God’s word toward sanctification never changes.

This thought reminds me of the saying that, “God meets you where ever you are but doesn’t leave you where you are at…” God will meet you in the pig pen etc, but He doesn’t leave you there in the pig pen, he puts a robe on your and a ring on your finger and you now have a higher calling.

The tension is to press forward to reach forward to the high calling of our Christian life here on this earth as we work out our salvation in fear and trembling, yet pressing on toward the goal.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. – Phillipians 3:13-14

The bar is never lowered in sanctification for either seeking God with our whole heart or having a relationship with Jesus, and a passionately practiced life in Christ, not by which earns us any merit or a righteousness of our own but out of the gratitude of our justification. In other words the highest understanding of doctrine and who Christ is, should only compel us to live out this doctrine in theological living. It should be a conforming factor in our lives which we are ever seeking to be molded by and transformed into the image of Christ.

On the other hand I have heard also many a sermon that discusses the dumbing down of America, no one can read the reformers and look at the educational system in the united states and see the quality of people we’re putting out into the world and not be amazed at how far down the intellect scale we have seemed to come. People can read my own blog and see that there is either a lack in the educational system or in me, or a combination of both.

There has been many a sermon which takes the dumbing down of Christianity and runs with it disdaining vernacular jargon. Some make snide remarks or comments about churches who don’t have much of a message, or who in their attempt to contextualize the message in the vernacular language weaken the message by weakening the vocabulary. And many times there is a thread of truth in these accusations. Some churches have made much of loving people contextualizing or seeking felt needs to the point of gutting the gospel message.

The problem is that neither of these two things need to be pinned one against the other yet for whatever reason this happens: Intellect vs. plainly speaking, high doctrine vs. loving men and the lost. The problem is these things MUST co-exist and yet we in our short sightedness do not always see it. We must have Intellectual high expectations and yet speak plainly, and we must never lower the bar of preaching and doctrine, and still yet love men.

How many of us as believers began in the churches which perhaps were more seeker oriented and held less emphasis on doctrine. Someone demonstrated the love of Christ to us in one of these churches where doctrine wasn’t their highest priority yet God used it for our benefit. This is not to say that the gospel message must not be understood from Gospel truth. Somewhere along the way we must have heard the true gospel message and regeneration must have taken place, and as we grew in relationship with Christ He showed us a deeper and deeper walk, and deeper and deeper theology and doctrine, and a deeper and deeper love. None which come without trial and experience in the faith as we walk out the doctrine He’s using to shape our lives.

So it is in these tensions we must seek after truth, once again danger on both sides of the extremes. We must also be careful not to step on one side to polish the other; both extremes lose the heart and the point of the intention.

What I am most thankful for is Christ who demonstrated both of these things for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, marrying the two things together, faith, and the byproduct or fruit of faith which are the works He prepared for us from the foundations of the world.   Jesus gives us both giving us amazing doctrine, and yet living practically among men, demonstrating these truths as He lived and gave us in the new testament an example of this:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” -Matthew 22:36-40

So as you are considering Thanksgiving, read scripture, meditate upon its meaning, drink it in as it is the true bread of life which we can not live with out, and tell someone about the good news of Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Popularity: 30% [?]