Relevance in Today’s Church

Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege. – Matthew 7:6 (MSG)

I read this scripture a while back and thought it was really good. But today, it just kept ringing in my head like a warning siren. I feel like this verse speaks to where much of the Church either currently is or is quickly heading. Sadly, there are so many churches and preachers and well-meaning Christians today who are either completely misinformed about who God is OR they’re chasing down “sinners” so hard that they’re willing to bend the scriptures to make them more appealing to “the lost”…hoping to lure them (under false pretenses) into the church building. They want to make the Good News Message an all-inclusive invitation to Heaven so that everyone feels like they have a chance to squeak in.

Look, I’m not trying to be mean or hard-nosed about this, but at some point, you HAVE to notice that something has gone horribly awry with American-Christian theology. I don’t want to leave anyone behind. I love my unbelieving friends and family. But I absolutely refuse to water down the Word of God to accommodate their sin and leave them thinking they have access to something that they clearly do not. I refuse to lie to them and say they can get into Heaven on some kind of technicality. Now, I don’t go out of my way to shake my bony finger in their face and tell them they’re going to hell. But when asked about what I believe, I am always honest and I always base my opinion on the authoritative Word of God. Ultimately, it’s the job of Holy Spirit to convict people of sin. My job is to love people, saved or not, and to be a light of living example. Please understand, I fail daily, but I do the best I can by the Grace of God to be a good example. But once they ask me what I believe on a particular topic, I am bound by God to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

No matter how you try to bend the scriptures to appeal to today’s “sinners,” this IS an exclusive club that you have to become a “member” of in order to reap it’s benefits. While our general “motto,” if you will, is “everybody love everybody,” that doesn’t mean we wink at a person’s sin and then try to help them slip in the back door. God certainly doesn’t. God is nothing if He isn’t Holy…He is perfect. Yet, in all His wisdom, He is fully aware that we can’t be perfect by ourselves, due to our sinful nature. That’s why He sent His son…to act as a “go-between.” The perfect, spotless Son of God came and took on all of our sins and He paid the price so we could have free access to the Father and forgiveness for all our sins. He bled and died so we could be saved. But just as a car wash won’t get your car clean until you drive through it, neither will Jesus’ blood perfect you in the Father’s eyes until you enter into it through a relationship with Him. Sinners MUST first of all realize they ARE sinning, then sincerely ask for forgiveness before they can receive it. They must be covered by the blood of Perfection in order to be seen as clean in the eyes of our Father. I cannot tell people that they can continue to walk in their uncleanliness and still get into Heaven because God is a “good guy.” They have to know what sin is so they can repent of it; and they have to ask for and receive that cleansing, then “go and sin no more.”

God DOES love sinners. He loves us ALL. He doesn’t want a single one of us to perish. But He requires righteousness. He requires sacrifice. He requires us to give, not only 10% of our tithe, but 100% of everything we are, everything we have, and everything we do. This isn’t meant to hurt us or to take anything from us. This is so we can be truly free and blessed and cared for as sons and daughters of the King! He wants us to be free from addictions and bondages that have us tied down. He wants us to understand the beauty He sees when He looks at us. He wants us to know who we truly are in Him; and He wants us to one day walk in His presence, enjoy a celebratory feast, and join Him on the streets He paves with gold. But He will NOT wink at our sin. Jesus paid to high of a price for our freedom, and the Father wouldn’t diminish the Son’s sacrifice by letting us “slip through.”

I’m having a really difficult time expressing what I’m trying to say here.

First of all, this is not meant to be an admonishment to the lost. God loves you. Jesus died for you. You cannot earn the gift of forgiveness nor blessings from the Father. He wants to give both of these things to you freely. There is no sin too large that the blood of Jesus doesn’t cover it. All you have to do is tell God that you want to allow Jesus to be your Lord (someone or something having power, authority, or influence; a master or ruler) and Savior (a person who saves someone or something from danger…a rescuer, liberator, deliverer, emancipator). Ask Him to forgive you of your sins (immoral acts considered to be a transgression against divine law…wrongdoing, acts of evil/wickedness, transgressions, crimes, offenses, misdeeds, misdemeanors, immorality, iniquity, vice, crime). If you ask Him these things, then the blood that Jesus spilled out of His body when He died on the Cross (before He raised from the dead) will cover you, and these things will be seen by God no more. You will enter into a brand new relationship with your Heavenly Father with a clean slate. It really is that simple. The Holy Spirit will then come to live inside of you, and He will tell you right from wrong. It’s your job, then, to do as He is leading you. Don’t worry. He will give you the strength and wisdom you need to walk this thing out His way. And the more you listen to Him, the easier it will be to distinguish His voice from all others. There’s no special place or fancy way you have to do this. You can do it any time, any where, as long as you mean it. He’s with you now and He can hear you just fine. You are NOT far away from Him because He has never left you.

With all that said…What I AM trying to address here are the people who are already saved but who keep giving out a false sense of hope in order to make Christianity more “relevant and palatable.” You don’t have to make God’s Word relevant. It already is. Proverbs 30:6 and Revelation 22:18 warns us about adding to and taking away from Scripture. Don’t try to add your ideas about what would make His Word “work better” in today’s world. Don’t assume you can articulate better than Scripture what God does and does not consider acceptable. Take the Word for what it is…the WHOLE Word. Don’t take a bit here and a piece there. Take the whole thing and weigh it against it’s self. You don’t have to sell it to anyone. That’s God’s deal. All you have to do is share the Good News and genuinely love on people, and they’ll want what you have. Yes, millennials falling away from the Church is sad. But YOU and your hipster church with famous speakers, flashing lights, and “we don’t use the S-word (sin)” attitude can’t make them come back. God’s goodness is what leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4)…not some slipshod version of the Truth. Authentic Christianity is what people are missing. It’s what they’re craving. And it seems to me that there are lots of people who are ready and willing to give them anything but that so THEY can be more widely accepted rather than making God’s name famous.

Some Christians are simply afraid of rejection and societal retribution…They’re afraid of being shunned by Man or tortured by groups like ISIS. But Proverbs 29:25 says that the fear of Man is snare, but fearing the Lord will keep us safe and protected. I’m sorry if what other people believe is contrary to the Word of God, but that doesn’t make His Word any less true. We MUST NOT be silenced into submission. Like Peter, when he and John stood on trial in the very courts where Jesus stood trial and was sentenced to death just a short time before…they asked Him, in whose name they were performing miracles, and Ol’ Pete held nothing back:

With that, Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, let loose: “Rulers and leaders of the people, if we have been brought to trial today for helping a sick man, put under investigation regarding this healing, I’ll be completely frank with you—we have nothing to hide. By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the One you killed on a cross, the One God raised from the dead, by means of his name this man stands before you healthy and whole. Jesus is ‘the stone you masons threw out, which is now the cornerstone.’ Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.” – Acts 4:8-12 (MSG)

May we be so bold when situations arise that call for a response such as this! Christians, we MUST stop sniveling and hiding and manipulating Truth and get out there and walk lovingly, yet powerfully in our authority. It is for a lack of knowledge that people will perish…and we have the knowledge. It’s our job to share it.