Sunday Sermons
Players
Recently I was reading a book which noted that in the denominational world, where various churches has a singles group, that such groups have “players”, that is, men and women who stalk their prey to satisfy their own needs. Leonard Ravenhill wrote, “This present day is like an arena whose terraces are filled with the militant godless, the brilliant and belligerent skeptics, plus the blank-faced heathen millions, all looking into the empty ring to see what the Church of the living God can do. How I burn at this point! What are we Christians doing? To use a very tattered phrase, are we just ‘playing church’? One writer noted that many denominations are “event-drivened”. “My church in Des Moines has an excellent choir, known throughout our region for its professional sound. Our orchestra is even supplemented by players from the local professional symphony orchestra. In discussing our church with a new neighbor, she said, ‘Oh, I’ve been to your church. I really like it. It’s just like going to a show!’ My church has an excellent schedule of tradition-driven events. There’s ‘Super Bowl Sunday’ evening services that fosters racial harmony. We have ‘Honor America Night’ every Fourth of July to honor our great country, inviting renowned speakers. Our annual ‘Metro Night’ honors the volunteers and staff of our daughter church in the inner city. We have Christmas specials, Easter specials, ‘Friends Day’, “Back to School Night’, and much more. Recently, we scheduled a week of nightly all-church prayer meetings. Now hardly anyone would argue with the strategic value of prayer or question the fact that we’re commanded as believers to be faithful at it. But obedience in the matter of prayer is costly and takes commitment. On Monday night as our week of prayer began, a mere thirty-four adults showed up out of a regular church attendance of twenty-three hundred. By Thursday, only seventeen adults were praying. Yet one week later, on Worker Recognition Sunday, one thousand people were there to be recognized for their service” (Every Man’s Battle, Stephen Arterburn pp. 52-53).
Bible Players
“Jesus answered them and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled’” (John 6:26). “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?’” As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:60,66).
Obedience or mere Excellence?
Throughout the Bible even God’s professed people have been tempted to substitute something or anything for obedience(Micah 6:8). Yet God is clear, He will accept nothing less than obedience, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion (that is, anything less than obedience to God’s standards) is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:22-23).
“What’s your aim in life excellence or obedience? What’s the difference? To aim for obedience is to aim for perfection, not for ‘excellence’, which is actually something less. ‘Wait a minute!’ you reply. ‘I thought excellence and perfection were the same thing’. Sometimes they appear to be. But mere excellence allows room for a mixture. It most arenas, excellence is not a fixed standard at all (in the eyes of men). It’s a mixed standard. Let us show you what we mean. American businesses are in search of excellence. They could be in search of perfection, of course perfect products, perfect service but perfection is too costly and eats into profits. Rather than be perfect, businesses know it’s enough to seem perfect to their customers. By stopping short of perfection, they find a profitable balance between quality and costs. To find this balance, they often look to their peers to discover the ‘best practices’ of their industry: How far can we go and still seem perfect? By how far can we stop short? Businesses find it profitable to stop short at the middle ground of excellence because perfect costs too much” (pp. 49-50). Many denominations aim for excellence and have many programs and events; the problem is that “excellence” (as defined by men) is not God’s standard. God’s standard is obedience to His word, and nothing short of that is acceptable(Matthew 7:21-23). The rich young ruler is a classic example of a man striving for excellence in his moral life, but not being willing to pay the price of obedience to the Lord (Mark 10:17-22). The Bible (NASV) does use the term “excellence” (2 Peter 1:5; 1 Peter 2:12), for there is nothing wrong with the term and in Biblical usage, excellence and obedience are the same thing. Yet I thought the above quote was useful, for among men, “excellence” is too often defined as something far less than obedience to God.
Counting the Cost
“So where do you stand? Are you comfortable? Do you have a broad tolerance of sin in your behavior? Has your approach to God led to a high level of mixture in your life? Trouble is, we aren’t in search of obedience. We’re in search of mere excellence, and His command is not enough. We push back, responding, ‘Why should I eliminate every hint? That’s too hard!’” (p. 57).
· It costs something to learn about Christ, it costs a lot to live like Christ (Luke 14:26).
· It costs something to avoid Playboy magazine, it costs a lot to control your eyes and mind on a daily basis.
· It costs something to dress modestly, it costs a lot to have a pure mind (Philippians 4:8).
Ephesians 5:3
“But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints”. Notice the statement that not “any” impurity is to be found among God’s people. God has a standard of no tolerance toward sin, not any, not even a hint. “Such vices are to be so far removed from us that even an intimation or a suspicion of their presence among us should not occur” (Lenski p. 596). The sad thing today is that not only are such sins found among professed believers but also many even defend their presence! We see the same truth in 2 Corinthians 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God”; “Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us” (Hebrews 12:1). These verses are contrary to the thinking that says, “How far can I go and still be called a Christian?” The Bible is very clear, nothing less than conformity to God’s standard is acceptable. “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Is our morality just about the same as the “good people” of the world, or is our righteousness a surpassing righteousness? Are we actively cleansing ourselves from all unrighteousness and every sinful thought and desire or are we making exceptions for ourselves?
Mixing
“Ephraim mixes himself with the nations; Ephraim has become a cake not turned” (Hosea 7:8). That is, like a cake cooking on hot coals that has never been turned, burned on one side and raw on the other, hence, worthless, like a bad pancake. “They were cooked in heathenism but uncooked or raw in their relation to God” (Hailey p. 159). Note, the people were not out-and-out followers of Baal, but half-hearted commitment to God is just as bad as no commitment (Revelation 3:14ff). Mixing with the nations is conforming to the world (Romans 12:1-2), it is something less than loving God with all your heart, and obeying Him completely. Carefully note that mixing yourself with the nations or the standards of the world always has a predictable outcome, that is you are like a bad pancake, burned on one side and raw on the other. “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it, gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:9). The spiritual vitality of the nation was being sapped and the people did not even know it. Compromise, toleration of false religion, the relaxing of moral standards, situation ethics in business, and alliances with other nations were making the nation prematurely old, and the nation was blind to the fact that she was on her last leg. The same thing happens to Christians who allow a mixture of good and evil in their lives. We cannot be victorious over temptation and be tolerating it at the same time. There is no way that we can be gaining spiritual strength while we are tolerating sin in our lives. If you do not have the strength to evangelize, teach your children, overcome a temptation, attend frequently, or improve your relationships, then take a careful look into your life, for you will probably find a mixture of good and evil that is being tolerated. Too many congregations are filled with members who have low-grade sinful fevers, members who are happy enough to attend, but too sickly to reach the world for Jesus Christ.
Not Victims
We are not victims of a vast conspiracy to ensnare us, rather if we are in sin we have simply chosen to mix in our own standards with God’s standard. Since we found God’s standard to be too much work, or too much of a sacrifice (just like the rich young ruler), we created a mixture, something new, something comfortable and something mediocre. Yet God warned His people in the Old Testament what would happen if they compromised His standards of holiness (Deuteronomy 7:16). But the Israelites did not destroy all that was evil, they found it easier and easier to stop short. In time, the Canaanites and the idols they had left became a snare to them. The same will happen to us. Any sin that is not ruthlessly dealt with will come back to haunt us and will drag us down to eternal ruin (Matthew 5:28). The final earthly consequence of tolerating evil, would be a self loathing (Ezekiel 6:9 “They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done”). “When we entered the Promised Land of our salvation, we were told to eliminate every hint of immorality in our lives. Since entering that land, have you failed to crush sin? Every hint of it? If not, have you come to the point of loathing yourself for that failure? If that’s where you are, there’s hope for you” (pp. 44-45).
Taking God’s Word Seriously
God has already told us that He is going to judge us according to how our lives measure up to His standard which is revealed in Scripture (John 12:48; 2 John 9; Matthew 7:21). Therefore, we can never let anyone convince us that God will settle for something less than obedience. In the end, our battle against Satan, the world, the denominations, and liberal doctrine is that God accepts nothing less than obedience, and there is no substitute for obedience. “Israel’s King Josiah was only twenty-six years of age when he faced a similar situation of neglect for God’s standards. In 2 Chronicles 34 we read how a copy of God’s Law—long forgotten—had been found during a large-scale renovation of the temple. Then he listened as this Law was read aloud to him—bringing inescapably to his attention God’s standards and the people’s failure to live up to them. Josiah didn’t say, ‘Oh come on, we’ve lived this way for years. Let’s not get legalistic about this!’ No, he was horrified. He tore his robes as a sign of grief and despair. ‘Great is the Lord’s anger’, he said as he immediately acknowledged his people’s negligence and sought God’s further guidance. At this point, notice how Josiah immediately led the entire nation in a thorough return to obedience to God’s standards (2 Chronicles 34:29-33). No mixture here. Knowing that God’s standard is the standard of true life, Josiah rose up and torn down everything that was in opposition to God” (pp. 55-56). Do we have some demolition and remolding to do?
