Sunday, August
2, 2015
Who or what is stealing your joy in
Christ? It happens to every person who
decides to follow Jesus. A temptation becomes
that distraction competes for our loyalty.
To follow Jesus, to be a child of God,
is to submit our lives to him. But the
evil one things into our lives, things that demand space that belongs to
God. The devil conspires with our own
tendency to sin. This unholy alliance
preys on the hearts of women and men.
When successful, the tempter convinces
us to marginalize our faith. God gets a
little bit of us, not leadership in all areas of our lives. Maybe we devote a couple hours on a Sunday,
maybe three Sundays a month to God.
Maybe less. And we tell ourselves
we are Christians and we are church goers.
Our call is not to check off “Christian”
on the census form. Our Lord calls us to
submit everything in our lives to Jesus.
The enemy attempts to grow other interests, not always inherently sinful
pursuits, but distractions that as they grow in our minds cause Jesus to
shrink.
What distraction is diluting your faith
and intruding upon your walk with Jesus?
In the late first century, church
leaders were active in Israel, Northern Africa, and Europe. Churches had been planted by the Apostle Paul
and by others. By 100 AD, a couple of
generations had passed since the crucifixion and resurrection. Most of the Apostles were dead. The next generation was carrying the Gospel
and the church into the new century.
One interesting development in this time
was the conversion of Jesus’ siblings.
James rejected Jesus during the Lord’s earthly ministry. Then, Jesus appeared to James after the
resurrection and he became not only a follower, but one of the strongest
leaders in the church.
A younger brother, Jude, also became a
post-resurrection disciple and church leader.
I believe the epistle positioned just before the Book of Revelation, the
letter from Jude, was penned by one of Jude’s disciples.
James learned the faith from Jesus and then
led the Jerusalem church and perhaps mentored his younger brother Jude. And eventually Jude grew old and became a mentor. This letter, I believe, comes from one of his
students, one who wrote down his teacher’s words.
The epistle of Jude is written to combat
religious competition. He says intruders
infiltrated the church. Outside
agitators distracted the Christians under Jude’s influence. In some cases, members even questioned Jude’s
voice and began to turn their allegiance away from him and away from the Gospel.
Today intruders vie for our attention –
attention we know belongs to God. Some
examples are obvious. An addiction
demands a person give more and more of himself – his attention, his time, his
money, and his mind and spirit. The
disciple life can’t keep up with the alcohol or the drugs or the porn whatever
the addiction is; gambling; shopping.
There are other intruders. Perhaps you become so convinced of a
political movement that it demands of you ultimate commitment and ultimate
loyalty. Civic involvement is not
necessarily bad, but it becomes a tool of the devil when participation in
government and politics take precedence over following the lead of Jesus in our
lives.
Exercise can be an intruding idol. You start a new work-out program and you get
stronger and lose weight and feel good about yourself. You receive compliments on your toned
physique and a new group of friends, work-out buddies, forms around you. Exercise is wonderful and we should all do
it, but not to the point that of religious fervor.
He
works out religiously.
I
never miss Downton
Abby; I watch it religiously.
She
goes into the library every Tuesday morning, without fail. She does it religiously.
The only thing worthy of religious
allegiance is the worship of God in the name of Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Anything else that commands the
top priority and moves Jesus to second or third place in our lives is intruding
on the fellowship we have, a community that stands on who we are in Christ.
Jude says these intruders are headed for
oblivion because they fail to believe in what God is about and who God is (v.5). Destined for destruction; this is anyone who
is cut off from God and without knowledge of Jesus or is not following Jesus as
Lord. The only path to life is the way of Christ. Anyone who doesn’t know and follow Jesus is lost.
Jude stacks the Biblical allusions. Those who intrude upon our life in Christ are
the Egyptians who pursued Israel only to be swallowed by the Red Sea. They are fallen angels who rejected God’s
authority and now sit in chains awaiting judgment. They are the sinners who died in the
destruction of the cities Sodom and Gomorrah.
Jude does not hold back in his
insistence upon the importance of the life we have in Christ. What we have is different and the world will
never recognize it.
In an editorial columnist David Brooks writes
about culture wars. They centered on
divorce and then abortion and now same sex marriage. He rightly points out that fundamentalist
Christians have become militant over these issues. The word ‘militant’ means aggressive and
combative, here refering to attacking rhetoric, not the literal taking up of
arms. Brooks has a point.
The words ‘fundamentalist,’
‘evangelical,’ and even ‘Christian,’ have become confusing. Take a poll in which you ask people on the
street to describe an ‘evangelical Christian.’
You might hear. Well, an evangelical Christian is someone
who always votes republican, opposes women’s rights, and hates homosexuals. I bet there is a greater chance that you’d
get that than to hear someone say, an
evangelical is someone who loves you and will help you with your problems as he
shares the grace and love of Jesus with you. Brooks is right when he points out that the
siege-like mentality of some in the evangelical community has been so intense
that many outside of Christianity don’t really understand what evangelicals are
supposed to be about.
Our society is not a Christian
society. Democracy is the best we can do
here and now. But it is not
Christian. The Kingdom of God is not a
democracy; it is a theocracy with the entire population submitted completely to
the Lordship of Jesus who rules with love, grace, and mercy. In our society, as Christ followers, we are
‘other,’ something different.
David Brooks does not understand
this. Neither do a lot of
Christians. Brooks’ solution is for
Christians to put aside the culture war and to wage a different war, one
against poverty – societal poverty, moral poverty, sexual and relational
poverty, and material poverty. There are
so many ways America is falling apart; in every category of life, there is
confusion and deconstruction. Brooks
recognizes that society is in decay and Christianity can help turn the tide
toward a better way of living.
Much of what he says is right. But what he misses is why. The reason followers of Jesus can, in Brooks’
words, serve as “messengers of love, dignity, commitment, communion, and grace”[i] is
Jesus is the source of these things. But
even if we announce these wonders given by the Lord and invite the world to
Him, love and grace and the rest will not be realized until people give their
lives to follow Jesus. I agree with
Brooks that Christians should be known for grace and love not known for what we
opposes. I agree that we need to be more
compassionate and loving. More than
that, we must be known for our absolute devotion to Christ.
When people or groups or ideas or any
other phenomenon intrude into our worship space and into hearts, Jude says
these invaders become “blemishes on our love-feasts.” Would you describe your church life and your
relationships in the church family as a love-feast? If our eyes are fixed on Christ and our
hearts are bent to Him that is what it feels like. And all other things - family relationships, good things like
exercise, civic engagement – these are done by Christians under Jesus’
watch. Our participation in the world
around us is done as expressions of our discipleship.
Jude calls the intruders “waterless
clouds.” Desperate for refreshment, we
see these deceptions hoping they’ll provide something, cool and wet and
cleansing and refreshing all we end up dry and unsatisfied. Again, Jude was addressing false teaching
that crept into the churches under his watch.
The threat we face is the reduction and thinning of our faith as other
pursuits try to occupy God’s place in our lives. Nothing will give us what God gives us.
The answer, says Jude, is to build
ourselves up in faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. We learn how to do this in our life in
church, in small groups, worship, and in individual relationships. We diligently attend to these things in order
to grow in Christ.
Jude also says we are to have mercy upon
doubters, those who aren’t sure which way they will turn, toward God or away,
and upon the lost. Through our love and
witness we can snatch people from the fire.
These intruders can become our brothers but only if we remain sure of
the Gospel and share it with great compassion, patience, and love. And upon
hearing that gospel the intruders become broken in their sin and realize that
their only hope is Jesus.
Recall the shooting at the church in Charleston,
South Carolina. A white young man went
into an African American Church prayer meeting and killed 9 people. His
motivation was racial hatred. The
fall-out from the tragedy has included the removal of the Confederate Flag from
the statehouse steps in Columbia.
Recently two groups came out to protest
on the same day. On one set of steps up
to the statehouse was a group of African Americans there to protest racial
violence. On the other set of steps to
the same statehouse, a group of Nazis, white supremacists, demonstrated with
their twisted message that America should be a nation of Caucasians in which
all other races pay a tax or be force to leave.
It is so hideous and stupid and antithetical to the Gospel, it’s not
worth mention.
The actions of State Trooper Leroy Smith
are. He is African American and was
working security at the rally of the Nazis.
They hated his existence. He
assured their safety. One of the Nazis,
a feeble, elderly man, was struggling in the South Carolina summer heat. Trooper Smith gently took him by the arm and
walked him up the steps, out of the heat, and into the air conditioned
statehouse. It was an act of kindness done for someone wearing a racist
t-shirt.
Why go beyond his duty to help someone
who hated him? He said it comes down to
one word: love.[ii] I don’t know if he is a Christian, but his
action is the epitome of what Christians are called to be. We are messengers of
God’s love, defined by Christ, motivated by compassion to perform works the
world around us will appreciate but never understand.
We hold on to this calling as we fend
off intruders by knowing the truth and standing in love as we live into our
identity, a people born again, raised to eternal life with Christ Jesus.
AMEN
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