Christianity

A Christian Image–You should care what others think

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

Ever heard the phrase “I don’t care what other people think about me?”  Or “It’s not about what others think of me, it’s about what I think of me.”  Maybe even your parents told you that.  I hate that phrase.  A lot.  Because we do care.  As humans, it’s inevitable.  There’s a reason I get up, shower, put on deodorant, and put on cologne (sometimes) every day.  Yes, I want my girlfriend to think I smell good.  But I also don’t want the guy next to me in class to sit through a lecture thinking “Oh wow….he smells like fish guts and three-week old milk.”  There’s a few reasons I brush my teeth every day.  One, I have a decent sense of personal hygiene.  Two, I don’t want my breath to smell like crap.  I put on decent clothes and try to look my best so my professors and classmates know that I take my work seriously.  So stop lying to yourself, both Christians and non-Christians alike…you DO care what others think.  And to the Christians, you should.

Now, before I go any further, let me define what I mean when I say you should care what others think.  For the Christian, we are NOT to find our satisfaction in man’s praise.  We are NOT to define ourselves by the world’s definition.  My definition of success is not when the world tells me good job, it’s when the Lord is glorified by my work.  Yes, I want to succeed in journalism.  I want my professor to say good job.  But when she says good job, what I hope is that she understands by my attitude and by the content of my writing and how I present it, that I serve God, not myself.  Ultimately, however, if I never make it “big” as a journalist, I’ll be content if God is made much of through my writing, and I never even receive a sticker.

What the Christian is to care about is what people see when they look at you.  While we find our comfort, our sense of who we are, and our knowledge of true success and love in Christ, we are also called to be the image of Christ to the nations.  I DON’T care if people never praise me for my writing.  I DON’T care if they ever see me as a great guy in the worldly sense.  If they don’t think I’m “cool” or a “manly” man…so be it.

“For if i were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”–Galatians 1:10

But I DO care, and all Christians should, whether they see Christ in me.  If they see love in me.  If they see me as someone they can come to with problems and can trust me.  If I can be comic relief when it’s needed.  If they see me as reliable and dependable.  I do care if they see me as tenderhearted and caring.  I DO care if they see Christ…and care even more if they can’t see Him.

Let me pose some questions:  What happens when non-believers look at our churches today and see that our divorce rates are the same as the non-believers?  When they see that our anger is just as great as theirs?  What happens when they see scandals that rock our churches?  What happens when they see us arguing and bickering over secondary issues that really don’t matter?  What happens when they see us elevate ourselves, our buildings, and our paychecks over what we say we believe?

What happens when we do these things, but fail to remember the Great Commission?  When we do not share Christ with the world around us?  I’ll tell you what happens.  Well, actually…..Jesus will.

“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”–Luke 12:8-9 ESV

That’s what happens.  We say we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He has changed our lives.  And people watch us, day in and day out, and I believe that far too often, all they see is someone who puts on khaki pants on Sunday mornings and may even listen to some new music.

God didn’t radically change your life, or my life, or send His Son to die for us, so that you could wear nice pants and listen to Chris Tomlin for the rest of your life and call yourself a Christian.

The simple fact is, is that when we live like the people described in the questions five paragraphs earlier, and when we fail to truly live the Christian life, people do not see God.  And we must start to question whether we ourselves have actually come to know Christ.

What difference does Christ make in your life?  Ask yourself this.  For me, it means that when I feel lonely, I can go to my heavenly Father and find comfort.  When I start to feel overwhelmed, I can give up all my troubles to Him.  It means that I find my satisfaction in knowing that I am loved by Him who created the world, and that I am no longer captive to the destructive power of sin.  If you find that it really doesn’t make a difference, start asking yourself if you have ever truly believed.

The world is watching.  And we MUST realize this.  We are called to live radically different than the world.  When trouble comes, we trust in a higher power.  The Creator of the universe.  When disaster hits Japan, we point to God’s sovereignty and rest on the promise that He IS in control, no matter what.  When parents get divorced and husbands die, we rest on God’s promise to never leave us.  That’s what makes the difference.  It comes down, not just to morals, but to where our sense of right and wrong, of what to do in all situations, and how to live life comes from.  It comes from God.  Another phrase I don’t like: “Share your faith, and if necessary, use words.”  It sounds good, and there’s truth in it.  We are to live lives that point to the cross.  But there are hundreds and thousands of people who live good, upstanding, moral lives that are going straight to hell.  Gandhi and Thomas Jefferson are two of them.  We must SPEAK about why we do what we do, and about where our strength and love comes from.

Do we build ourselves up, or do we make God known?  What image do you put off everyday?  Does your life shout and scream the glory of God, or does it say “Yeah, I’m a good guy, I can do all these things, and yeah, I guess Jesus is pretty cool?”  As the church, are we more concerned with building good-looking buildings than building up the kingdom of God?  Is the majority of our money going to spread the Gospel?  Are we loving with other believers who we may not agree with on every single secondary issue?  I hate to see Christians divided over these issues that don’t matter (and I’ll save those specific issues for later blogs).  Because when it comes down to it, the church, the universal body of Christ, has one goal, and one goal only, and that’s to bring glory to God by making Him known.  If you are not doing that, you are failing. Period.  No way around it.

One more question I’ll leave you with:

If the world isn’t seeing Christ when they look at you….what do they see?

Scary thought that someone could look at a “Christian” and see anything BUT Jesus.  Unfortunately, especially in America, where nominalism is prevalent, this happens everyday.  People of God, church: We must come back to true faith that transforms lives, and allow God to transform our image, that we may make His name known.  And we must do this now.

God bless,

Neal

The Prodigal Son or the Older Son…which one are you?

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

Most, if not all, professing Christians, if you asked them, would say they rejoice when a sinner comes to Christ, as they should.  After all, it’s what Christ was and is all about.  His Word says we are all sinners, saved by grace.  So, why is it that it seems like there are some people we don’t want in heaven?  It’s time to ask the tough questions and look at ourselves in the mirror.  Do we approach missions and evangelism the same way as we do a buffet….picking out what we want and leaving the rest?

Luke 15….my favorite chapter of the Bible.  The parable of the prodigal son is one that I especially relate to.  I was saved at the age of eight, but, for ten years, I never matured past that eight year old level of spiritual growth and deepening my faith in Christ.  I trusted that Christ is the Son of God and that He was resurrected from the dead after dying for my sins on the cross, but I didn’t know what it meant to me on a daily basis and how it applied to my life.  As a result, I pushed God into a corner and started living the life I wanted.  I had anger inside of me for things that I couldn’t control.  I cussed like a sailor.  I had lust like no one’s business.  When it came down to it, I didn’t really want to remember what Christ did on the cross, because I wasn’t quite ready to give Him everything.  Thank God He never let me go.  Fast forward to age 18.  Jesus pretty much hit me upside the head and told me that He was tired of His little corner.  Sure, during the six years that I really strayed from the Lord, I had my high points.  Some weeks I felt close to God, and I would “rededicate” my life to Christ.  But, as David Platt puts it, I wanted to be pardoned, not purified.  I didn’t quite understand what it meant to live out my faith.  I get to college, and I realize that I have to give up everything.  My sin, my dreams, my friends, my life for God, and let Him take control.  So, when I read about a man that was probably a teenager going and squandering everything he had on sex, booze, and “friends,” I can relate.

This son decided he didn’t want to wait until his father died to receive his inheritance.  So he demanded it before the father died.  I can’t imagine going up to my mother and “demanding” that she give me money.  One….I don’t have an “inheritance” from my mom.  My “pay” is to be able to come home to a nice house, get great food, shower, and sleep.  Two….she might decide to learn how to fire a gun if I ever talked to her like that….anyway.  The son goes and spends it on prostitutes, alcohol, and just living the high life.  The Bible says he “came to himself” and realized that his sin went deeper than just with his father….he had sinned against the God of the universe.  He longs to eat the food that pigs eat.  A week before, he thought he was on top of the world.  Now, he’s lower than the pigs that roll around in mud.  He plans to go to his father and ask forgiveness and work his way back to him, but before he gets the chance to speak, the father runs, literally runs, towards him and embraces him.  He was looking for his son.  He never gave up.

If I had to make up for all the sin I’ve committed and the wrong I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt….I would never be able to do it.  But God sent Christ for this reason…we no longer have the burden of living to the law’s standards.  Christ secured our forgiveness with His death.  He took the payment for all those nights I spent lusting after women, all the foul language that came out of my mouth, the lies and hate I showed towards friends and family, and took my punishment.  A local pastor said this past Sunday that in the new covenant of Christ that “I get all the benefits of Christ’s faithfulness, even though I am not faithful.”  God saw me while I was a long way off, and chose, by His absolutely incredible grace, to bring me back to Him and make me new.  I truly repented and made God first.  I’m not perfect, and never will be.  But thanks to God, I’m not where I used to be.  He took a lukewarm and sinful boy that called himself a Christian and brought him back to himself, and is molding me into the Godly man He wants me to be.  The father in this story doesn’t see the sin his son has committed, he only sees his son, and looks on him with love.  Because of what Christ did on the cross, this is how the Father sees us.

So, sinners are usually seen as the prodigal son.  We are rescued from our sin by faith in Christ, and God the Father welcomes us into His family with open arms.  But there’s another group that needs mention…the older son.  Otherwise known as the Pharisees….or Christians who obviously haven’t read the Word in a while.  Otherwise known as…..our churches.

We proclaim to love all people, but instead of loving on them and showing them the love of God and the gospel….we judge them and condemn them for what they do.  Like I said earlier, we treat missions like a buffet, taking what we want, what we care about, and leaving the rest.  We hear of some nice group in Africa that needs help because they don’t have water and we go and faithfully proclaim the gospel.  Hallelujah.  Amen.  Then…we hear the opportunity to witness to a homosexual community in a big city and say “God doesn’t care about those people.  They’re too far off.  We can’t help them.  They’re just sinners.”  We may not say those words, but it’s what our attitudes show.  Jesus never said to love those who you really like and identify with.  He never said to just go to the people you feel comfortable with.  The truth is…we are miserably failing.

The campus of my university has an incredibly diverse population.  I tend to disagree with a lot of what they do.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love them as people.  We are all sinners.  If it wasn’t for God’s grace, none of us would be here.  Yet we act like we’re better than others because for some reason, we think being a Christian was our God-given right.  Where in the world do we, especially in the south, get this sense of entitlement?  Certainly not from Scripture!  Romans 2:1–“Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.  For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”  This verse is skipped over way too much…and it’s beginning to become obvious.

Christians, again, especially in the south, are becoming like the older brother in Luke 15.  He gets angry at his father because he has served him for two years and didn’t receive anything, yet his brother comes home, his brother who was living in sin, and receives the fattened calf.  Look at opinions of Christians all over the country.  All you have to do is go read some of the comments on newspaper stories that deal with faith.  We are seen as judgmental, mean, snobby, and ignorant hypocrites.  Does that sound like the kind of people Jesus wants to carry out the Great Commission?  It may not be true of all of us, and no, we don’t seek praise from the world, but we better start caring about our image.  Not in the sense of “If I look good, I must be good,” but with missions in mind.  With the “I want people to see Christ in me so I may better advance the Kingdom and glorify God.”  There are two problems with the older brother:

1) He treats his years with his father like years of servitude.  He expects something in return so he can “celebrate with his friends.”  This is the equivalent of us going to church without wanting to experience and glorify God.  We drag ourselves to church Sunday morning and then expect God to do something for us, when we forget that the whole point of church, the whole point of life, is to bring glory to the King, and not to ourselves.

2)  He is so focused on his brother’s sin that he forgets and refuses to see him as his actual brother.  This is where I believe we are having major issues within the church.  It’s been brought to my attention this week that I myself have failed.  I have come across as judgmental…something I never expected to hear.  I know it was not my intent, but the problem is…I wasn’t intentional enough with my love and I lost my focus and became a hypocrite.   A Pharisee.  Then, Sunday God hit me with truth.  The pastor at the church I visited said “It’s not our job to convict people.  We are not the Holy Spirit.  We are to lovingly point them to the gospel.”  I had to check myself, and it stung a little bit.  I apologized and asked God to forgive me and to guide me and my ministry with love and peace, not religion and judgment.

Our churches seem to have this thing where we focus on the sin and not the sinner.  Our Christians seem to have this thing where we want to point out others sin, but not our own.  We must remember that the only difference between non-believers and Christians is that we know Christ.  And it is by God’s grace alone, nothing we do merits our salvation.  Where do we get off thinking that we are wiser than God?  Do we honestly think that we know who is “fit” for the kingdom of heaven?  Certainly not us.  No one is.  Not without Jesus.  So why do we go around believing that we are better than others?  We’re all about getting sin out of others lives, but we fail to recognize the sin in our own lives.  We’re all about fighting against abortion, fighting against homosexuality, fighting against all these things, but we forget that this world isn’t filled with issues and sin.  It’s filled with people struggling with sin.  They may not realize it, but they are.  They don’t need us coming around and beating them over the head with the law and being a moral dictator.  Show the love of Christ, show them the way to God, and pray for them.  Spend time with them, become a friend.  We are not to condone their sin, and we certainly don’t join them in it, but we don’t leave them to the world. God didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves in this dark world….why are we leaving others?

I love what my pastor says, even though I’m not sure if he actually came up with it…maybe he’ll read this and tell me: “Hate the sin…love the sinner.”  Amen.  Jesus spent more time with sinners than he did righteous people.  He loved them and showed them the way to the Father.  If the one we call King, the one we call Savior, did these things, we should jump at the opportunity to do the same.

So, are you the prodigal son?  Caught up in sin, wondering how to get back to God?  Life wears us down sometimes….but God is there.  We will struggle with sin and with life’s problems, but we have a Savior and a Conqueror in heaven who is there to pick us back up.  Come to Jesus.  Give Him everything…sin, doubt, problems, relationships, whatever it is….just lay it down.  Make Him Lord, and He’ll make you part of the family of God.

Or, maybe you’re the older son?  Quick to judge, but slow to recognize internal sin?  It’s easy to get caught up looking at the sin of others.  Believe me.  It’s especially easy where I’m at, and in college in general.  But I’ve found that as I get swept away by God’s love for me, I start to love others more easily, and it’s not just other Christians.  I’ve decided to spend more time trying to meet people that are different than me, and share the love of Christ with them.  It must be intentional.  It must be done with the guidance of the Lord and with prayer and with the gospel.  But most of all….it must be done.  Period.

One day, peoples from every tongue, every tribe, every nation will bow before the Lord.  It’s time to stop believing that it’s all about us, all about our lifestyle, all about our friends and our “morals.”  It’s time to start believing that God can and will change the hearts of every kind of sinner imaginable.  If He did it for me, He can do it for anybody.  That goes for those that are more like the prodigal son and for those that identify with the older son.

If God loves all….why don’t we?  And what are we going to do in response to this love that transcends all lifestyles, all countries, all languages, and every other barrier imaginable?  Will we sit and wait for it all to end without reaching out to those who desperately need Jesus, just as we do?  Or will we be intentional and boldly proclaim the gospel to the nations, to the ends of the earth?

God bless,

Neal