To all those who may have missed the service today I felt compelled to write and share with you a little bit of what God has put on my heart and the heart of others.  This is a sensitive subject.  It would not necessarily be easier but perhaps nicer to always talk about those things in God’s word that makes us feel good.  We are however reminded the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12. I cannot imagine a time I have ever gone under the knife that it felt good, but the outcome was always positive and I was better for it.

Last week I used the analogy of there being an elephant in the room, or the sanctuary as it were.  I got a few looks from people in the congregation as you might expect.  The thought of such an animal in a holy place as Gods sanctuary is a bit perplexing to the point of being sacrileges for some.  None the less, it is something that needs to be dealt with.  I continued addressing the issue of what it looks like in the church.  Now again allow me to qualify my statement, when I say “church” I am not talking about our little home of loving people only but also the church at large which includes us.

The text I referenced today came from Matthew 7: 1-5 NIV. ¹“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  ³“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We all know this scripture and have all heard it used in different contexts, usually by someone who was avoiding judgment on themselves.  It is often easy to stand there with dirt on one’s face and make the statement that others are not supposed to judge, in other words turn and look the other way.  That is not what this scripture means at all; in fact it is one of the most judging passages in the bible.  The one who gets evaluated or judged which ever word you want to use is you and me, not someone else.

With the number of Christians shrinking world wide (by the way here is a glimpse of the elephant no one wants to talk about) we are going to have to take a hard look at ourselves and make some hard and drastic changes.  We are going to have to look in the mirror and take some time for introspection and allow God to lead us and change us in the process.

The April 13, 2009 Newsweek shared some shocking facts and figures that warrants some attention.  The article entitled “The Decline and Fall of Christian America” points out some shocking and stark facts that one cannot turn and look the other way from.  The article goes on to point out that on one third of Americans claim they are “born again.”  The data indicates people are moving toward more conservative beliefs; however the remaining Christians are becoming more evangelical in their outlook.  With fewer people seeing the United States as a Christian nation it only supports the decline in Christian beliefs.  This view is down 8% in just this last year, and yet religious influence is on the rise.  Forty eight percent of all Americans feel religion is the answer to all of ones problems and this is at an all time low.  The article points out that Christians feel defeated on hot topics and issues such as abortion, prayer in schools, and other issues they involve themselves in.  Prohibition was seen as a “great moral victory” but was later seen as a failure due to it being repealed.

The 19^th Century evangelist Charles Grandison Finney is quoted as saying “The great business of the church is to reform the world, to put away every kind of sin…Christians are bound to exert their influence to secure legislation that is in accordance with the law of God.”  As a pastor I cannot agree with this statement entirely.  We do have a job and are called to a purpose and that is to . . .¹⁹ go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The rest is left to God to complete through our obedience to what Jesus instructed us to do. Matthew 28:19, 20 I do not believe our place is in the halls of justice or the political arena.  I believe Jesus feels the same way.  Jesus was clear when He said give to Caesar what is his and to God what is His (Matthew 22:21).  Not only were the teachers of the law trying to corner Jesus and frame Him, Jesus made a point of keeping the things of God separate from the affairs of the world.  The two cannot be mixed.  This is not to say we do not have responsibilities here on earth, but our allegiance is to our Father in heaven.

All too often we have turned our place of worship into a place of gossip, discord, judgment, and degradation, not a place of love, confidentiality when someone confesses their sin, and restoration.  We should be able to go into God’s house with those things that weigh us down and leave liberated, restored, and not weighed down and burdened more than when we went in.

The way this passage in Matthew reads from the Message is “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, and criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment.  That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.  It is easy to see a smudge on your neighbors face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.  Do you have the serve to say, “Let me wash your face for you,” when your own face is distorted by contempt?  It’s this whole traveling road show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part.  Wipe the ugly seer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor. (Matthew 7:1-5—the Message)

We are losing ground today with our neighbors because we are more concerned with the character defects of our neighbor than we are our own.  We are often more concerned with what other people think than we are with what God thinks of us.  We are often more concerned with trying to make the other person do what we think they should when we are not even doing those things our self (Luke 11:45-47).  We are often more worried about our own needs and a not bit concerned with the needs of those around us, and we stand awe struck, dumb found, with our jaw agape when we are called hypocrites by people in the world.  Politics has become the backbone of the church on many different levels.  Jesus called the teachers of the law hypocrites and referred to them as white-washed tombs.  They looked oh’ so pretty on the outside, every one adored them, but they were full of dead men’s bones.  Nothing on the inside was alive.  (Matthew 23:26-28)  This is a warning with all that is going on in the world, and all the talk of end times, we better take a look in the mirror and deal with the dirt on our own faces before we start attempting to address the world.  The hard truth is we are not in a position to carry out God’s commission of telling and teaching others about Him.

They say the first step to recovery is acknowledging ones own problem and the fact they are powerless over it.  In order to fully acknowledge our problem that rests not only in the church but inside of each one of us is we are going to have to take a look in the mirror.  To do this it may take courage to look deep into our own eyes and acknowledge the stinky elephants, which represent unresolved issues, problems we have ignored and acted as though they never existed.  We are going to have to take an inventory of the smudges on our own face, count the planks and telephone poles in our own eyes and be willing to address them before we can expect to see real change.

How dare we even think of inviting people into our church(s).  It could be compared to inviting guests over for dinner and never lifting one finger to pick up and get ready for company.  Think about it, when someone invites a guest over for dinner the house is cleaned and everything is put in order for our guest.  I know my wife Amey cringes when she hears that I had someone over when she was not expecting them.  She likes to have everything just right for our guest, and no guest is any more important than the other.  She is fully aware of what needs to be put in place in her house.  The same needs to be the case with each of us in our lives and relationship with Jesus. We need to be keenly aware of what needs to be put in order in our lives and less concerned with what is out of place in the lives of the person next to us.

We prayed for God to send children and He did.  Let us take a look in the mirror and see how we have done with our precious children.  They came and made a mess, made a lot of noise, ran around giving headaches to some of the adults.  What was our response?  We approached them and told them to be quiet they were being too loud.  We criticized one another’s children saying how we could no believe how they behaved, when in reality our own children were culprits right along with the other kids.  We have been critical of one another at times, quick to call out one another’s specks in the eye when in actuality we needed to respond differently and acknowledge our own filth and disdain.

The question might be, “how might we respond differently?”  Instead of being bothered by the noise of the children we could go over and love that child and spend a moment with them.  Instead of criticizing one another because we don’t like something about them we might take a moment to get to know that person and make an effort to see them through the eyes of Jesus.  If we are concerned about the response of those around us we might take a long hard look in the mirror and change those things in our life that we have control over.  The saying goes; the things we are most often bothered by in someone’s life are the very things which are prevalent in our own life.  We actually do more to keep children away from coming to our Lord that we might realize.  Jesus said it would be better to tie a mill-stone around our neck and be thrown into the deep ocean than to hinder a child coming to Him.  However, if we welcome a child in the name of Jesus we welcome Him. (Matthew 18:5-7)  We are to do nothing to hinder anyone coming to Jesus as little children.  In fact we are all supposed to come to Him like little children.  We must take great caution that we do not cause anyone to continue in sin as a result of our behavior. (Matthew 19:12-14)

What is our response to this message?  How might we respond?  The answer is quite simple.  Our response as children of God is with Love.  Love toward God and love toward one another.  We are to carry one another’s burdens and seek to restore one another gently not harshly.  When we do this we fulfill the law of Christ, not the law of the world or our own idea or approach to restoring a person. (Galatians 6:1-3)

When we look in the mirror the obvious image we should want to see is that of Christ.  One might wonder how they know if they are getting close to the mark.  The following passage is a great acid test for us to see how we are doing.

²This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. ³This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, ⁴for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 1John 5:2-4 NIV

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Christ likeness, holiness, love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.