Here are a few things that may shock a few Christians...
There are no cliques in heaven.
There are no special areas for Christians who were married or worked a ministry
at church. Teaching pastors don’t get ushered to the head of the line with a
spot light on them. That person you don’t like at church? How will you react to
them when you see them in heaven? Let’s hope not the same way as when you see
them in church.
Why? Well...
Heaven hurts about your clique.
Heaven grieves that you are using marriage as a way to look down on those who
are single (or divorced). Heaven is saddened by the fact that you use your position in
ministry to treat people with disdain. Heaven weeps when a teaching pastor
separates himself from the flock and instead surrounds himself with an
entourage. Heaven is heartbroken when you gossip in the coffee bar before
service starts.
As Christians, we are supposed to
live repentant lives. Our sin should break our hearts, but the world has crept
into our churches and what once would have been troubling behavior, is now the
norm. We’ve adopted the worldly view of “well, I have a really good reason for
doing what I’m doing” and the ever popular “it’s not my fault”. The world makes
excuses. The world does not take responsibility for its actions and sadly, the
church is following suit.
So, we live with our boyfriends
or girlfriends, view porn, gossip, exclude people, curse, have affairs, divorce
without cause, show our dislike for others, use crude language, ignore the
poor, steal, use our position within the church to dismiss people, judge, and so many
other worldly behaviors there truly just isn’t enough space.
And we do it all because we think
we are okay. “Everybody gossips,” you’ll say to yourself. But, a gossip never
sees the damage he or she does to the person they are gossiping about, and if
you think the object of your gossip doesn’t know you are gossiping about them,
oh how wrong you are. The gossip just feels the superiority high that gossip
gives them. They are accepted by the other people in church they gossip with
and get props for doing it, so in their mind, there is nothing wrong with it. The
feelings of the person they gossip about are of no concern.
That is how sin works. It is
deceptive. It is simple. It speaks to our pride and insecurities and tells us
we are okay having sex with a computer. There is no one being hurt here. We’ll
be able to have a healthy relationship with those around us, it doesn’t matter.
What goes into your mind doesn’t come out in your life. No one will know. Go ahead.
Sin is silky smooth when it tells
us to hate that person and treat them with disdain. Never mind that we don’t
really know them. They irritate or annoy us, right? Show them how you feel with
your not so subtle way of ignoring them. Or smile at them when they approach and
then hold your breath and hope someone doesn’t mention a bunch of you are going
to dinner, because my goodness, dinner would be ruined if they joined in. It’s
all about you and how you feel. As
long as your little world doesn’t have discomfort, it’s okay.
The lies of sin keep us entrapped
in our justifications. I mean, come on! Those homeless ‘people’ are an eye
sore, really. They have no business clogging our medians or our downtown. If
they just stopped mooching off us tax paying citizens and went and got a job
then they wouldn’t be homeless anymore. It’s their choice to be where they are,
after all.
And I get it. Our churches are no
longer holy sanctuaries, but are more like worldly high schools. We all want to
belong and be included. We even have 'campuses'. And we become people who think we
are the ‘cool’ kids looking down on those we deem ‘uncool’. We make big deals of ourselves because we’ve
belonged to the church for a long time and know all the right families and work
in ministry and know all the right people. We pick and choose who we feel
belongs and those who we feel don’t and then treat them accordingly. We laugh
louder in the sanctuary and hold court so others will notice how much we belong. And we feel perfectly justified
doing it.
And although we may know that so
and so are living together, or you know who is addicted to porn, or that group
over there are vicious gossips, we don’t say anything, because it’s so, well,
normal.
So, since we are right and okay
and justified in our sin, we have no need to repent. Repent from what? We
aren’t doing anything wrong. Sin no longer breaks our hearts and in our refusal
to see our sin, the heart we break is Gods. Repentance is a deep sorrow for a
wrongdoing that brings on change, and we seem to be missing the sorrow that
brings the change. Where is the painful
understanding that our behavior is hurting not only other people, but Jesus
Himself?
On this, the holiest week for
Christians, we keep Jesus nailed on the cross with our unrepentant sin and the
casual attitude we have adopted for it. We tell Him our sin doesn’t matter. It
is inconsequential. We praise His name and continue doing the very things that
hung Him there. Is this why He says of some, “Away from me, I never knew you?”
And repentance really isn’t
spoken about in the church any more. Another worldly component that has snuck
in is our not wanting to offend anyone. We don’t want to make people feel badly
about the sin in their lives. It may be spoken about in a message, say about sexual
immorality, but nine times out of ten, the pastor will finish by saying Jesus
loves you and therefore doesn’t condemn you. Which is true, but I can’t help
but feel we are leading them right up to a way to get out of the strangle hold
of whatever sin entraps them and instead, leading them around it, down the
garden path. We seem to forget that He said, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more".
Because to repent, we must tackle
our sin, and in tackling our sin, we have to go through the tough stuff. We
have to confront ourselves and that can be scary business. Why do we gossip? Why do we watch porn? Why do
we live with each other outside of marriage? Why do we ignore people we judge to be beneath us? Why do
we judge? Why do we steal? Why?
If we tip-toe around repentance
and not do the hard work required to eradicate sin from our lives, it will keep
us entangled and away from the Jesus we are claiming to follow. That deep
rooted sin in our life is keeping us from experiencing a deep relationship with
the Savior of the World. It is again saying that the work of the cross meant
nothing.
So, if we are keeping that sin in
our lives…and I’m not speaking of a mistake or a stumble…I’m talking about a
habit of porn or a lifestyle of living together outside of marriage or gossip
and disdain as a way of life for us…if we are keeping that sin in our life, if we
are making up excuses and keeping it close, Jesus is still hanging, broken and bloody,
on the cross.
And the joy of the cross is that
He came down, right? The next chapter is the glorious one…He rose. He conquered
death! Our confessed sins went down with Him into the grave and when He walked
out of that tomb, we are free from them forever.
That is why we rejoice on Easter
Sunday. Halleluiah!
