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Compromise and the Church’s Top Priority

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What is the priority of the church? Is it worship? Is it evangelism? Is it discipleship? Just what is the church here for?

If we ask that question of many believers, we will get a variety of answers. Some will tell us that the priority of the church must be evangelism, as, after all, evangelism is one of the very few things that the church can do here on earth that will not be possible in heaven. Others will prioritize worship, citing the Scriptural priority of the glory of God.

In truth, I’m not interested in what we say is the priority of the church right now. Instead, I am interested in what our actions display as the priority of the church. What do the things we do, the tactics we adopt, the choices we make indicate about what we really believe to be our priority? What are we willing to compromise on the one hand to accomplish what we think is most important on the other? That tells us much about what we value.

2 Corinthians 4:1-2 – 1 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

Paul shows us by what he would not do something of great value as to what is important for the church. In all that he did, in all the preaching and evangelizing, Paul would not cross a particular line. Paul would not tamper with or compromise the word of God. No cunning, no sly tactics, no underhanded ruse was an acceptable avenue. Paul wanted to glorify God by upholding the word of God and speaking the truth of God.

Paul would not compromise on the word of God, even to appeal to a broader audience. He would not say that the gospel should be unhitched from the offensive Old Testament. Paul would not say that we shift from the word of God to appeal to modern times. No, drawing a crowd and appealing to people apart from Scripture was not at all the priority that God inspired Paul to set for the early church.

And in our culture, any priority that causes us to hide, to tamper with, to reinterpret, or to do away with Scripture is not a godly priority. Honoring God by loving him in accord with his word is our priority. When that word causes people not to want the church, we must not tinker with the word or compromise the truth to try to avoid the hardships. No, God makes it clear that his glory and his word are above all priorities in the church.

Thankfully, his word calls us to love one another, to share the gospel, to sing God’s praise, and to do many other things that honor the Lord. We are not in an either-this-or-that position. We can love God, keep his word, and care for each other. We must do so. But the point is that we do not in any way shrink away from the word of God for any other thing. To do so is to adopt a priority that was not Paul’s and is not God’s.

Psalm 138:2

I bow down toward your holy temple
and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.

Two Thoughts on Comfort and Afflictions

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A passage that has always been beautiful to me is the opening of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. There Paul speaks, in that first paragraph after the greeting, of the comfort of God that is ours in affliction. And there Paul reminds us that God comforts us so that we too may comfort others with the comfort we have received.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 – 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Let me quickly remind us of one lovely and one hard truth that we should see in this passage. On the lovely side, we have our God comforting us and letting us comfort others with the same comfort we have received. When you hurt, when you struggle through something to the glory of God, when God helps you, one thing you can know is that the comfort he has given you is not yours alone. Your pain, even when it seems to have no purpose, can at least be to testify to the comfort of Christ and to share that comfort with others who are going through similar pains. This is good. It is good to know that our pain is never useless. It is good to know that our comfort is part of how we can be connected to the people of God.

But then there is the harder side of this. If this is beautiful; if it is a good thing that God’s children are comforted by God in their afflictions, the truth must be clear that Christians will face afflictions in which they will need comfort. In short, we will hurt in this life. Being a Christian does not put that to a stop. And we are foolish if we think that being saved is somehow going to be our way out of hardship and pain in the here and now.

The reason that I highlight this harder truth is that I know that, for myself at least, when I hurt, I really want to cry out against it. I want to let God know that he shouldn’t be letting me feel this way. He should not let me go through hardships. After all, I am his child. But the Lord, when we read Scripture with honest and open eyes, shows us that, lives surrendered to him are lives that will walk through pain. After all, how can we rejoice in being comforted in all our affliction’s if the Lord does not allow afflictions to touch us?

Friends, sometimes God is more glorified when he comforts us in times of affliction than when he keeps us from pain. This is a truth that we need to keep alive in our brains so that our hearts are not bewildered when pain comes. But the great news is that, in all afflictions, the Lord does comfort us and give us the ability to use that comfort to proclaim his glory and spread his healing in the church.

Where Wisdom Begins

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I want you to imagine that you have a job to do. Perhaps it is Christmas time, and you must work your way through the assembly of some sort of child’s toy. This work is tedious, painful, and often the cause of a need for marital counseling.

Imagine that you have the supplies. Imagine that you have the tools. And imagine that you have the instructions. But, then, imagine that the one thing that you determine you will not do is to allow the instructions to influence you regarding the steps that you should take to assemble the toy. How well do you think you would really do?

Psalm 111:10

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever!

The flaw in my above illustration is that, if you are mechanically inclined, you might actually succeed at assembling the toy. But give me a moment of thought. In general, you know it would be crazy talk to eliminate from your mind the actual instructions that tell you how to properly get the job done.

Consider with me how sad it is, then, when people think they can accomplish something of much greater difficulty, living the human life, without consulting genuine wisdom? How crazy is it for us to think that we have, in ourselves, what we need to make it through this world.

The word of God tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If this is the beginning of wisdom, we must also see that the word of God is telling us that there is not wisdom that does not begin with fearing God. If you do not fear God, you are rejecting wisdom out of hand. You cannot come across wisdom that does not begin with you fearing God. You cannot get down the path of wisdom without starting at its entry point, the word of God.

If you do not know the Lord, understand that he tells you that fearing him is the starting point for wisdom. You will not, you cannot, figure out life without him. You must come to him in humble repentance and faith.

And, Christians, we should believe Scripture enough to agree with this Psalm. Fearing God is the beginning of wisdom. We should not try to make people think that we believe there is wisdom out there that does not have the fear of God as its starting point. And you and I can mislead people if we choose to make arguments or offer pieces of life advice that do not start with the fear of God and the word of God. Let’s be careful to see to it that we show, by our thinking, by our apologetics, by our counsel, and all else that we do that we know that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Don’t Miss This When You Pray

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Psalm 109:26-27

26 Help me, O LORD my God! |
Save me according to your steadfast love!
27 Let them know that this is your hand;
you, O LORD, have done it!

In Psalm 109, the psalmist is in great distress. Enemies have tried to destroy him with evil words and false accusations. And the Psalmist is miserable. He is suffering in many ways, emotional and physical. And, as we might expect, he is asking God to deliver him.

This all seems normal, but then we look at the thing that the psalmist asks for in how he asks to be delivered. The psalmist is conscious of the fact that the best way for him to gain victory is when that victory is to the glory of God. The psalmist asks for God to make sure that his enemies know that it was god who delivered him.

There is a simple lesson here for us. When we pray, we often pray for our own comforts and desires. We often pray for health or for the growth of our churches. But we sometimes forget that we need to be praying that the Lord show the world that he is the one who did the amazing thing. God and his glory are uttermost. When we pray, our prayers need to remind us that, in our circumstances, the best possible outcome is the outcome that demonstrates that our God is glorious and worthy of praise.

Why did God Do That?

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What is God’s motivation for his actions? If God is perfect, then so too must be his motivation. When God chooses to do a thing, the thing he does is right, because the thing is a thing that the holy god does. And the motivation behind the thing is the best possible motivation, because the motivation comes from the holiness of God.

Consider, then, the glorious rescue of the Israelites from Egypt. Why did God do that?

Psalm 106:7-8

7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,

did not consider your wondrous works;

they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,

but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,

that he might make known his mighty power.

Why did God save Israel, even though the people did not remember his glory or honor him beforehand? The answer is that God did this for God’s name’s sake. God did this so that his mighty power might be made known far and wide. Spreading the truth of the glory of God, honoring the name of God, these are the reasons behind the Exodus.

If this is true, then we must grasp not only that God did some stunningly amazing things for his own glory, he also did some incredibly rough things for his own glory. The parting of the sea was for God’s glory. The drowning of the Egyptian army was for God’s glory. The saving of lives in mercy was to the glory of God. The crushing of the rebellious was to God’s glory.

And, if God is holy, then his motivation, to promote his own glory and reputation, is the best possible motivation he could have had for doing what he did. God could not have rescued Israel for a better reason than for his own glory. God could not have judged the Egyptians for a better reason than for his own glory.

Thus, we see once again that God does what God does for God’s glory. And the motivation that is best is to glorify God. So, for you and for me, our highest motivation and purpose in life is to glorify the God who made us.

If you are like me, a person without anything like a clean record of pure living in your past, you will understand that God is so very good and so very gracious. Had God chosen to leave me in my rebellion, he would have been just and glorious to do so. That God would have drawn me to himself and saved me, that too is to his glory and honor. I am grateful to God for that grace. And I owe to God the honor of accepting that all that he does is right, and all that he does is rightly motivated. God’s glory according to what God desires and commands, is the highest of all goods in the universe. May we learn to better shape our lives to give him that glory. And may we accept his revelation of himself in his word as the only thing we need to see that his ways, even the ones we struggle to understand, are always perfect.

Relying on Something Other Than God

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In 2 Chronicles 16, we read about King Asa and a crisis for Judah. The king of the northern kingdom of Israel was threatening the south, and Asa needed help. He needed rescue. And even though, in times past, the Lord had done miraculous things to rescue Judah from her enemies, this time Asa sent a payment of tribute to the king of Syria in order to get him to ally with Judah and turn away from Israel.

Asa made a shrewd political move. His actions were exactly what one might expect a king to take. And his actions worked. His actions also led to his downfall.

2 Chronicles 16:7-9, 12 — 7 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. 8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.” … 12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians.

The problem here is that, though Asa was successful, he succeeded in such a way as to refuse to rely on or glorify God in the process. And he clearly did not learn, as he refused to cry out to God for help in a health concern later.

Obviously, we can learn from this that the Lord wants to be glorified. In his people, the Lord desires to be the one upon whom we rely. And when we choose to try to handle everything ourselves and ignore the Lord, we are doing things that dishonor him.

In a word of caution, this passage is not opposing a believer’s consulting physicians for help. The problem is not that Asa involved a doctor. The problem is that Asa did not also involve prayer and the name of the Lord.

But let’s go a step further and think about the modern church in many settings. I wonder how much of what is happening in many church buildings around our land looks a lot like Asa striking a deal with the Syrians. Asa had a need. He had a goal. And he reached out strategically to make things happen. But in that move, he did not rely on the Lord. Asa, in point of fact, made the situation so that God would not receive glory from the victory.

Here is what I wonder, does your church rely on the Lord as it works toward growth? Or, is your church so focused on strategies, programs, and advertising that the Lord is only involved in the opening prayer of your planning meetings? In your services, is the glory of God central, or is trying to look appealing to outsiders your goal? Do you think that political favor in your community will somehow bless your church toward growth?

In truth, the Lord has told us and shown us what the church is to be. We are to love God with all our hearts. We are to pray and preach and sing and participate in ceremonies that the world thinks are odd. We are a people focused deeply on the word of God. We are different from the world. Jesus said that the way that we love each other is what will stand out to the world and mark us as different.

We will not honor the Lord in supposed church growth if our growth is based on compromise with the world and its principles. We do not build a church by force of a personality or through clever strategies to build a brand. We do not grow a church by showing the world that we are just like everybody else out there, we just have the extra benefit of a relationship with Jesus. No, we live differently. WE think differently. We do things that make no sense to the world.

As you see with Asa, God is not at all interested in us gaining little victories, even victories that seem to grow the kingdom, if those victories are not based on his glory. In the church, our victories must be based on prayer, on his word, on faithful worship, and on Christians loving one another. The victories in evangelism that honor God are not based on our cleverness, but on our communication of truth as we honestly speak the gospel and leave the results to God. May we never see churches grow large at the expense of showing that God is the one who does the building. May our strategies, plans, compromises, and personalities never get the glory. May we rely on the Lord and his ways, even when the experts say those ways are outdated. God calls us to be faithful to glorify him, and he will build his church.

A Humility in Worship

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Reading the account of Solomon preparing for the building of the temple, I was struck by the humble thoughts that come from the king as he sought out skilled craftsmen to help him build. Solomon, at this point, recognized a few important things about the project he was undertaking. He knew what the temple could and could not be. And Solomon knew what he was not himself.

2 Chronicles 2:4-7 – 4 Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him, and for the regular arrangement of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the Lord our God, as ordained forever for Israel. 5 The house that I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. 6 But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him? 7 So now send me a man skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, trained also in engraving, to be with the skilled workers who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father provided.

Two things should speak to us in this section, I think. One is the fact that Solomon knew, from the very beginning, that, no matter how great was the temple, it could never come close to being a house for God. The temple could not be the place where God resided. All the temple could be is the place where God was worshipped. But the entirety of the heavens could not contain the glory of the Lord.

Solomon also asked a significant question, “Who am I?” Who indeed is Solomon to lead in this undertaking? Who is Solomon to build something for God? Solomon knew that he did not have the skill to make anything worthy of the Lord. This is why he was sending out for the greatest goldsmith and craftsmen he could possibly get.

I think that we could learn something from Solomon that would impact how we worship today. When the church of the living God is gathered together, Peter tells us that we are living stones being built together into a temple of our God. We, the people of God, are now where God is worshipped. This is a glorious honor, something we cannot deserve. Worshipping our Lord is a privilege. We should see the concept that God would ever receive praise from us as the highest honor available to humanity.

But

At the same time, some of the humility Solomon displayed would be good for us. We should ask, “Who am I?” Who are we that the God of the universe would hear our prayers? Who are we that the God of the universe would accept a song from our lips as worship? Who are we that the God of the universe would be pleased when we speak truth about him? Who are we that the God of the universe would give us his word so that we might know his ways?

Remember, when asking those questions, that the answer to the “who am I” question is never correct if the answer starts with what we bring to the table. We were sinners, rebels against the Lord. We were lost and hopeless. God, in his great mercy, chose to love us, save us, and adopt us. Now we know that we are in Christ, children of God, and allowed access to him in our Savior. We should not hide from worship, because God welcomes us. But we also should know that he welcomes us, not because of the good that we bring him, but because of the good he has given us.

Christians, worship the Lord with joy. Remember what an honor it is to be allowed to speak his praise. And be humble, knowing that God has given you a grace that you could never have earned on your own.

Motivated by Eternity

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What makes the lives and values of Christians different from the lives and values of those around them? In that question, I’m not declaring that all who claim to be Christian are nicer or better in any way than anyone else. What I am pointing to is the fact that true Christians have a different value system than the world around them. True Christians live by a morality that is different than the world around them.

The concept of Christians holding to a different morality or a different meaning for life is an offensive thing to the world in which we live. When Christians declare that something is a sin that the world does not call a sin, the world is deeply offended. The world accuses the Christian of being hateful if the Christian and the world see a moral imperative differently.

There are certainly people in the world who would call themselves Christians and who are hateful people. But those who love God and his word would not truly be categorized as hateful. Yet, those who love God and his word will certainly honestly declare that there is such a thing as sin, that the morality of our culture is no longer in line with that of the Lord, and that repentance is necessary if we are to avoid destruction. Loving Christians must not be silent, even if the world receives loving warnings as hateful declarations.

Have you ever stopped to wonder, however, why it is that we keep on? Why do Christians continue to say what we say in a world that does not want to hear us? Why do we continue to risk our own comforts, sometimes our own freedoms, so that we can keep declaring the truths of the word of God? Why do we live valuing things the world hates? Isn’t it hard?

1 Corinthians 15:30-32 – 30 Why are we in danger every hour? 31 I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! 32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul shares with the church a moment of painful honesty. Paul says he dies every day. Every day of his life in Ephesus, at least over a season, was a heart-piercing challenge. Paul refers to his opponents as wild beasts, nasty, aggressive, evil men sent on his destruction. Why did Paul keep it up?

The context of this discussion is a fundamental discussion of life after death. Some in Corinth were declaring that there is no resurrection of the dead. And Paul, in the light of that craziness, says that if there is no resurrection from the dead, if there is no literal life to come after this one, then he might as well join the pagans in their debauchery.

In that, we are reminded of a motivation for our living differently. Why do we press on even when the world is going to hate us for not agreeing with their morality? The answer is that we keep on because there is life after death. There is an eternity to come in which we will all continue to exist. There is a heaven. There is a hell. There is a God we face. And the reality of eternity keeps Christians leaning into hard things in this life.

If all my morality consists of is a personal preference as to what is good and what is icky, I have no reason, no motivation to share it. If all I have is what I think is a better system to pass our years on earth before ending into nothingness, then I have no reason to share it. But, if what I have is the true word of God, a word that declares a life after this one—a life that will last infinitely longer than this one—I have a real reason to share it. I want to honor the God who has given me grace. I want to have the joy of speaking his truth even if others cannot tolerate it. I want to call on others to turn from sin and surrender to the Lord for his mercy. I want to see people saved for eternity. And that eternity that exists beyond this life, that eternity is what will continue to motivate Christians to declare the gospel of Christ to a world that does not want it.

Why tell people what is sinful? We tell people things are sinful so they can see that they need the Savior. Why risk offending people with our morality? We risk it because we are declaring the standards of the God who made us, who will judge us, and who understands true morality in a way that sinful humans cannot. Why go through the hardship when we know the world will mostly reject it? We go through the hardship to honor the Lord and because we know that some who hear the message, by the grace of God, will see their sin, see the grace of Christ, turn away from sin, turn to Jesus, and be saved for eternity. We press on, motivated by eternity.

What Makes a Pastor

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There are many attributes that should mark a biblical pastor. There are things that should be true of your pastor. Sadly, I do not know that many churches these days have this all figured out.

Years ago, I looked on line for a new pastoral position (Long story, Maybe I’ll tell you someday). As I looked, I found something disturbing. Churches listing for a new pastor listed what they wanted. They sought men who are leaders, organizers, driven, visionaries. They advertised for the men who would take their church to the next level or who would specialize in engaging the lost.

What was so often missing, however, was anything to do with the actual calling of a pastor. No, I’m not meaning a spiritual inner calling; I’m talking about the things that God has listed in his word that pastors are called to do and to be. I probably saw one church in ten, maybe twenty, looking for a man who would care for the church, who would be diligent in prayer, who would preach the word faithfully. Oh, many churches looked for a man who would be a good communicator, they wanted engaging and relevant sermons, but almost none listed a desire for a man who had a passion to feed the people of God with the clear, glorious, deep, unadulterated word of God.

Think of what Paul said about himself when he thought about preaching the word.

1 Corinthians 9:16- For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!

Paul said that he could not stand it if he did not preach the gospel. Something about bringing the inspired word of God to the people around him drove Paul. He pronounced woe on himself if he failed to preach. And, no, this passage is not merely referring to evangelism. Paul is clearly speaking of faithful biblical teaching of believers too.

I do not have any problem with a pastor being a good organizer or communicator. I’m fine with a man who is good at developing systems. But let us not be so foolish as to miss that a passion for proclaiming the word of God to the people of God is a clear necessity for a man to be a good and godly pastor. If a man has no fire in his bones for bringing the word of God to the flock, something is very wrong.

If you have a man who loves his systems and loves his organizational charts and is great at planning programs but does not love—I mean deep down in his bones love—the preaching of the word, pray hard. Pray either that God will bring that man spiritual healing and personal revival, or pray that God will give that man an understanding that he is in the wrong line of work. And if your church will tolerate a successful business man who does not love the word of God and who does not love proclaiming the word of God for the glory of God, for the benefit of the people of God, and then for the lost to hear afterward, be concerned. Your church might have a lay elder or two who still does not love preaching, and that makes sense. These guys are stepping out way past their comfort zones to do something many of them have not formally trained to do. But when your church is looking for the pastor who will regularly be preaching the word, may they not settle for anyone who does not love the proclamation of the word.

What Apologetics Cannot Accomplish

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What value is there in learning Christian apologetics? What help is there in learning to defend the existence of God or the reliability of Scripture? I think there is comfort and encouragement for Christians in these things. I think that a Christian might find that such defenses can help us to gain a hearing from a skeptic who thinks we have all blindly followed something that makes no sense. So I do not assume that evidential apologetics are without value.

But, I also know that evidential apologetics are not going to bring a person to faith. In fact, if we rely too heavily on them, evidential apologetics can falsely shape our discussion with others so as to be as much of a hinderance as they could be a help.

What does God tell us about the minds of those who oppose him?

1 Corinthians 2:14 – The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The natural person, this is the person not yet saved, is unable to understand the things of god. The natural person will not accept the truths of God. Why? The things that we need for salvation are truths that are spiritually discerned. It requires a true move of the Holy Spirit for a person to understand the truth of Christianity in a convincing way.

We might use apologetics well to show that there are gaps in the reasoning of those who say that they have arguments against the faith. Perhaps our arguments can get them to reconsider their opposition to the things of God. But, in truth, we must grasp that for a person to come to saving faith, it requires a work of the Spirit of God to open spiritually blinded eyes to the truth and beauty of the gospel.

At the end of the day, it is possible for two people to look at a single truth, understand it intellectually, and come to completely opposite views. One can look at the gospel, see their need, see the grace and beauty of Christ, turn from sin, cry out to god, and be saved. Another will hear the exact same gospel and find every bit of it repulsive. What is the difference? The difference is not logic or argument. The difference is the Spirit of God. To one the gospel is glory. To the other, the spiritual truth of the gospel is folly.

May we be people who engage others with conversation. May we use intelligent arguments to bring others to open their ears enough to listen to the gospel presentation. But, let us also understand that the difference between belief and rejection of the gospel, between thinking it beautiful and thinking it foolish, is the difference in having the gift of the Spirit of God making us alive or having the God of the universe leave us in our beloved autonomy.