What fellowship has light with darkness?

It has been a long time since I got to sit down and write something here. So I am thankful for the holiday season that I get to play a little catch up on things like this. 

The title of this post is from that famous little verse in 2 Corinthians 6:14. "...what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? "

This post actually has little to do with 2 Corinthians 6:14 or with the context that those words were penned. But more to do with the current time of year. We are just days away from Christmas and doubtless we have all been exposed to a nativity scene on TV or in someones garden, a Christmas play or our own personal thoughts of Jesus' birth have been floating around our heads. Every time I hear that verse read or someone quoting it I cannot help but think of it in terms of the gospel. What fellowship has God with fallen man? and what communion has He with sinners?

Love changes things because at a quick glance it seems God has contradicted Pauls words. For God so loved the world He was willing to come and live with us, dine with sinners of all kinds and share life with us. In the garden of Eden he sought out a rebellious Adam and Eve who were hiding in shame. The religious folk accused Jesus of being a friend of sinners. Truth is, he went much further than the pharisees ever could have imagined for his "friends", "But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

He is the good One who tabernacles with the rest. Of course Jesus never partook in the destructive practices of those he hung out with, there was no intent on his behalf to intertwine good and evil, on the contrary, he sought to save us from our own destructive nature by freely giving a new nature to those who would receive it.

That is the good news. No fat man in red, reruns on TV or socks from your grandma on the morning of the 25th. Just the story of the relentless love of a loving Father.

The core of the gospel

Hi all

The last entry I made here lad to some great emails and conversations over the last few days. I was quite encouraged by some of the feedback I had. Although my thoughts may have encouraged some, I realized that where I am scratching the surface some people are already scraping the bone. So thank you!

The one thing that came up the most though was the thoughts on the gospel of the kingdom as opposed to the gospel of the kingdom. The below excerpt is from Mike Erre’s book called “Death by Church” which I recently read and I thought he really put things in a way that I never could. So here it is, read, ponder and take it from there!

The gospel is, at its core, an exchange of sovereignties.

Many stress acceptance of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, assurance of salvation, and eternal life, and then they leave it at that. But even more fundamental to the gospel is the exchange of sovereignties. Either we live in Satan’s counterfeit kingdom of darkness or we live in the kingdom of God… The sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus have defeated the powers of evil. Conversion to Christ, therefore, is a turning away (repentance) from loyalty and allegiance to what is evil and choosing instead to be loyal to Christ and stand under His reign and rule.

    When we call Jesus Lord, we use the very name given to God in the Greek Old Testament. This declaration is a surrender of our own sovereignty and autonomy and leads to our submission to Him. Paul makes this confession central to kingdom life (as in Romans 10:8-9). When we declare Jesus is Lord, we are renouncing all other claimants for the title. Nothing else-no person, thing, idea, habit, and so on-can have a higher claim on our lives. All idols (including the worship of oneself so prevalent today) must be pulled down, repented of, and crushed at Jesus’ feet. Anything that takes the place of Jesus in our hearts, our devotion, or our passion must go. As Elijah the prophet said to the nation of Israel, “How long will you waiver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him” (1 Kings 18:21).

     To say that Jesus is Lord is to worship Him and nothing else. Psalm 115:8 and Psalm 135:18 teach that we become like what (or whom) we worship. If we worship sex, we become filled with lust; if we worship money, we become greedy; if we worship people, we then constantly seek their approval. If we worship power, we become controlling and demanding. When we enter into the kingdom of God, we are transferred from death into life, from slavery to freedom, from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. But these are all reflections of one fundamental exchange: we are transferred from the kingdom of death and darkness into the kingdom of God and His Son, Jesus. This is all entailed in declaring that Jesus is King.

   This saves us from the unbiblical idea that intellectual assent to the message of Jesus is considered saving faith. It is far too easy to “pray the prayer” and then go on living by one’s own rules and desires. Under the small gospel, where Jesus deals only with my sin problem, this is common. But the gospel of the kingdom removes such confusion. To step into the kingdom is to submit to Jesus’ authority as king. There is no middle ground.

    This doesn’t have anything to do with being saved by works. We evangelicals are rightly suspicious of anything that smacks of earning our way into God’s favor. But the gospel that pictures my relationship as a spiritual transaction (where I get Jesus’ righteousness credited to me and He has my sin credited to Him) leaves out both discipleship (how do I grow) and mission (what do I do now). The result is the disconnect between belief and behavior.  

10 Things I learnt when I left church.

Nearly 3 years ago I made the decision to leave the institutional church, it was a tough decision for me to make. If I was wrong it would almost certainly have a negative effect not just on me, but on my wife and kid as well. I had not been offended by the church we were attending nor was I backsliding. I simply had it impressed on my spirit that if we stayed we would eventually wither away and die. Around about the same time I started feeling this way I started to meet lots of Christians who were thriving spiritually despite their lack of church attendance. I had some real thought provoking books come across my path as well so soon enough my wife and I made the leap of faith.

It has been the most exciting 3 years of my journey thus far and as a family we have learnt and grown more than we dared imagine. I was reflecting a bit on this recently and so I decided to put pen to paper (or keyboard to Microsoft office word) and write some of the lessons learned that have taken place down over here. These are probably subject to change, hopefully only in deepening of understanding though. Coming from a charismatic and then more of a fundamentalist type of background, I have become a master at learning and unlearning things in the past, something that continues today… These thoughts are brief and therefore run the risk of being misunderstood but I really think that it is going to be quite lengthy already without expounding too much.You can always leave a comment to question something or send an email to moustachepower@gmail.com  if any points are unclear. If  you are reading this it may appear very critical of organised religion, that is not my objective at all. God is undoubtedly meeting people within those walls and programs. The intention here is simply to point to what God is doing outside of the box. 

So anyway, here are 10 things that I have learnt since I left the institutional church.

1 - Your new heart is not desperately wicked and deceitful.

This may seem a little unrelated, but it was an absolutely vital thing to learn to trust my heart again. I’m sure there are exceptions, but whichever churches that I attended when I was growing up, we had Jeremiah 17:9 thrust down our throats, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?”. But Ezekiel 11:19, 18:31 and 36:26 and other similar verses speak about God giving us new hearts. Once I took a step back and was out on my own, and couldn't sit back and pay the professional to give me a “thus saith the Lord” anymore. I needed to start hearing Gods voice for myself. I have seen many who have left organized religion behind still battling with this and 5 years down the line they are still reliant on hearing sermons via the internet from the same guys saying the same old things. As important as it is to learn from others, we have to learn to hear Gods voice for ourselves. And he really has 2 primary ways of speaking to us, one being through scripture and the other being to our hearts. Yet most people are taught that they cannot trust their hearts and so they never learn sensitivity to the Spirits nudging. And the truth is that we cannot rely on scripture alone to guide us into all truth because even those who have it cannot seem to agree on its interpretation. We need to exercise ourselves in both interpreting scripture and hearing Gods voice until they can exist in perfect harmony.

2 – There are no vestigial organs in the body of Christ.

This is pretty simple, but I used to think that this meant that 95% of us were there to shake strangers hands at the church door once a week, help with slides on the screen during worship or help make coffee and be content warming a bench the rest of the service. Sadly, every little job the church may find for people to do is still to prop up that one man in front at the end of the day. The greeters make you feel welcome, the worship team gets you into the mood, the Sunday school teachers keep the kids away and the sound guy makes him heard, all so the preacher can deliver his sermon more effectively. In the true ekklesia, regardless of location, each one has a job that directly puts the spotlight on Christ. It may not happen at a certain time or location every week and it generally has nothing to do with a program. It is a natural outflow of living in Christ.

3 – Sola Scriptura sounds better than it really is.

This is in no way a criticism of scripture, neither is it meant to reflect negatively toward the importance of sound doctrine. I am truly thankful for the book that I have many worn out copies of on my shelf, which truly is inspired in a unique way. Many have given their lives that we may own it. However, this motto or mindset of “scripture alone” has been the cause of more division than any other factor in the last 2000 years. The protestant church has splintered into 46 000 denominations in just 500 years because it has chosen to center around the word that became ink rather than the word that became flesh.  Paul admonished the Corinthians for following men and dividing Christ (1 Cor 1:12-13). Yet we have totally chosen to ignore what he said, we have followers of Calvin, Wesley, Luther etc etc. Where brothers are centered on Christ, there can be disagreements and unity.

4 – Let’s not forsake fellowship.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together is vital. Yet the institutional model only creates the illusion of fellowship. A few smiles, some singing followed with staring at the back of somebody’s head for an hour or so was not what the author of Hebrews had in mind (it couldn't have been because church services had not even been invented yet). The truth is that we need each other; scripture is filled with “one anothering” verses. We cannot love as Christ instructed if the church does not become relationally focused beyond the Sunday gathering.

5 – It’s about the kingdom, not about religion.

Religions have many things in common; they all have clergies and laity, priests and laymen, places of worship, holy days and money boxes. Christ never came to start another religion though, He preached what the New Testament calls the gospel of the kingdom, so did John the Baptist, the 12 disciples and the other well known folk of the bible. Early Christianity was not even considered a religion, the Romans in their ignorance even mocked the Christians thinking that they were atheists. It was not until hundreds of years after Pentecost that Christianity under Constantines guidance became a religion. “The Pilgrim Church” and “The Torch of the Testimony” are 2 great books dealing with the subject.

6 – The gospel of salvation is a half truth.

John 3:16 is true and it is truly good news, but it is still only a half truth. Scripture does not speak of the gospel of salvation, nor does it speak of the gospel of finances and prosperity as one lady tried to convince me while channel flipping earlier today. The gospel is of a kingdom and a King! A casual stroll through the New Testament reveals this and while it is certainly Gods desire for everyone to change the way they think, call on Christ and be born again. His plan is bigger than that! The gospel of salvation is self centred, while the gospel of the kingdom is about God. The gospel of salvation deals primarily with two events, the moment of salvation and the moment we go to heaven, whereas the gospel of the kingdom deals with our transference from one kingdom into another in the now!. The gospel of salvation is great, but there is so much more than that.

7 – The love of Christ compels us, not the obligation to perform.

Religion thrives on using shame to get people to do things. And of course we like to measure our works against those of others because we never quite know if we are doing enough. If Christ has not put it in your heart to love and serve, then I think that we need to check our motives for doing the things that we are doing.

8 – Religion is dangerous.

The world laughs at Christians, the atheists are not shy to poke fun at us and very rarely can we argue with their accusations because what they say is generally true. Sadly, I always find myself pleading with them to see the difference between Jesus and what he taught as opposed to the organizations and peoples who “represent” him. I do believe religion (as we use the word in modern times) within any faith can be dangerous, including Christianity. It creates Pharisees and the only thing more dangerous than unrighteousness people is self righteousness people.

9 – God is not who I thought he was.

In the last 3 years my perception of who our Father is has dramatically changed from someone who would kill his own son so that he could again talk to us (doesn't seem fair or just does it?), into a Father who loved his creation so much that he was actively involved in the redemption of it. I think a lot the “cheap grace” teachers out there have given grace a bad rep because of a lack of understanding regarding sanctification. Likewise those who slam the grace of God don’t seem to understand “justification". I have so fallen in love with the story of the Prodigal son in Luke 11. God is so big and we will continually be learning more of who he is far into eternity, I am confident in His love as portrayed in that one short story of the loving Father who shows grace and love to the prodigal son and then extends the same love to the equally lost older brother.  

10 –Our life is in the vine.

John 15 has also really come alive for me, learning that the Christian life is not one of trying to follow the new set of rules which overthrew the Mosaic ones, but one of surrender to Him. Only Christ can live like Christ did, but he can do it through us as well, as long as we allow him to do so. A branch cannot bear fruit of its own accord, cut it off from its source and it withers and dies…

The Kingdom

I am busy reading a book called Death by Church which sounds pretty predictable, except that it's not. Initially, I only bought it because I found it for next to nothing at a depo. But it has been awesome so far and is really just a book on the Kingdom of Heaven, the gospel. This is a quote from the book which I really loved, lots to think about in these few sentences.

(The church) was designed with the particular mission of bearing witness to God’s advancing kingdom of beloved community through participation in the crucified and risen Christ, and of being consumed by him on behalf of the world for which Christ died. As such, that beloved community should be breaking down divisions between male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and it should be confronting those demonic forces that distort and reduce people to races and classes, to rugged individuals in isolation, peoples whose value lies in how much they produce and consume. The church becomes a fallen power when it loses sight of its fundamental allegiance to God’s kingdom, when it becomes proud and autonomous and thus distorted in its use of power, seeking political advantage in the secular sphere so as to win benefits for its members, benefits that will allow them to achieve and maintain a Laodicean standard of living and leisurely lifestyle, as they are – in the meantime – reduced to a function of the state, market and consumer culture.

Paul Louis Metzger (Death by Church – Mike Erre (pg63)

That's it. I have been quiet of late but have a few things I want to write again when time permits. Adios!