Graduate 71: The Church is Not About Loving People

The Church is not about loving people. The Church is about following Jesus Christ. This posting is addressed to the people of the Church.

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The Church is about following Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is committed to and commands us to love people. Therefore the Church should be about and committed to loving people. This is, of course, a sound deduction and it is very true that the Church should be about loving people. But too many people accept the conclusion of that syllogism without taking seriously the initial premise. And though the conclusion may stand alone as a proposition, it cannot stand alone in the existential practice of the life of the Church.

That all sounded rather heady, probably. This comes of just having finished my second full week of graduate school. But the sentiment remains very much my own and it's something that's been nagging me for the last four months.

I suppose it began with one conversation about the nature of salvation. Then a talk about Christians who really aren't interested in holy living. Then I was thinking about this whole idea of the Church being a force against world-systems of oppression--which just seems wrong to me (in addition to being very antiseptically articulated). Then there were the messages by Chris Brown that I watched through the APU website. (live.apu.edu--follow the link for Kaleo Chapels from 2002-2003) And most recently I began listening to sermons by Francis Chan out of Cornerstone Church of Simi Valley (podcasts are fantastic) and began reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.

And the truth is, I'm still not completely comfortable with the idea of writing this all up for my blog. I'm concerned that it might be misconstrued--by Christians and non-Christians alike--on the one hand. But more than that, I'm worried that by posting this online, I will succeed only in securing my own damnation--in at least one significant sense if not wholly-literally. It would be far too easy to settle for the task of championing the cause of Christ in words alone--to quiet the unrest in my spirit and assuage my troubled conscience with the knowledge that I "did something"--what is, in truth, only a half-measure. What worse fate than to continue in mediocrity, comfortable in the false impression that I have done my duty, when I have only sidestepped the call to true obedience which is the only true life.

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So the problem I am addressing is of a misguided Church, that believes it is following the call of Christ but persists in moving in a direction contrary to him. Integral to that concern is the problem of individual Christians, who claim to be part of the family of God, but evince none of the fruits and even a callow indifference to Jesus Christ's commands. And as part of that discussion, I must at least touch, in part, on the musings of my own soul and the problems I see in my own life, along this vein.

One way of introducing this discussion is to think about heaven. Salvation is often presented as the key to getting into heaven. With salvation comes the assurance that one will enter heaven and live eternally with God. But what is heaven? Eternal bliss. Absence of physical pain or weakness. Endless joy. Freedom from suffering. No death or mourning or sorrow or crying. Who wouldn't want these things?

And yet, I wonder... My thought is this: that a very large number of people who claim to look forward to heaven, in fact, would absolutely hate almost every moment of actual existence in paradise. "How can this be?" you may ask. "Who would be so averse to bliss and joy and freedom from suffering?" Maybe they wouldn't be averse to those things, but, then again, that's not all there is to heaven. In fact, the primary, central, and most important feature of heaven and life eternal is this: that Jesus Christ will have been placed on His rightful throne; that all authority and power and dominion will be given to Him; that the cosmos (along with everything and everyone it contains) will be ordered in perfect accordance with His will, according to His plan alone, and for His glory.

I think that there are many people who want heaven for themselves--for the benefits that they will derive from it and for the good that it will do them. But that's not what heaven is about and anyone who is expecting that will be gravely disappointed (to say the least). This is not to just say that God wants everything to be about Him and won't tolerate anything less than our total devotion. True and complete happiness are not possible apart from God.

Here's a controversial kind of statement, but I think it conveys the point I'm trying to make. Even if God wanted to, and committed all of His time and energy and power and resources (which are a lot) to the project, He would remain utterly incapable of creating a paradise in which people would be truly happy while focusing on something (or anything) other than Him. All of God's power and might cannot create a paradise in which people are truly happy apart from Him or apart from total and undivided devotion to Him. (I am orthodox and do affirm God's perfect omnipotence. If you think I've contradicted that claim by what I've said, talk to me about it and I'll try to clarify how the two are compatible.)

So heaven and eternal life are about Christ being the center and all things being in harmony with His will. But that creates a problem for us--because we're not in harmony with God's will. And in our natural condition we would not even want to be in harmony with God's will. Instead, we pursue the gratification of our own ends according to our own means and abilities; this is sin. God, in His grace, revealed to mankind through the Law of Moses what His desire was for humanity--what a life in harmony with God and other human beings and the world looked like. It was full of respect and love, honesty and integrity and purity, safety and fellowship and peace and joy and goodness. But the sin nature, already at work from the time of Adam, took advantage of the good Law that God delivered by His grace and twisted it. The Law revealed that one should not covet, but the sin nature seized the truth of that good law and turned it so as to sow the seeds for all kinds of coveting in the hearts of men and women. (That is one example from the book of Romans.)

We recognize, if only intuitively, that the world has fallen into disharmony. We don't even measure up to the level of our own convictions about what is right and true and good. When set against God's perfect and supremely good standard--we fall far, far short. In our sinful nature, we cannot be in relationship with God, we cannot enjoy true happiness, we cannot know the perfect life for which we were created.

So, in His grace and mercy, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ (and Jesus Christ, in turn, came of His own free will according to his love and mercy). He came and lived a perfect life on earth, was ridiculed, beaten, crucified, and buried. In this, he took upon Himself--bore in His own bodies--the consequences of our sin. Then, by His resurrection from the dead, He was declared to be victorious over the power of sin and death. And to those who believed and believe in Him, He sends the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers and enables us to follow Jesus; to do what we could not do on our own power--follow and obey perfectly.

Indeed, it grows more and more unreal to me that any Christian could claim that, because of the salvation we have in Jesus Christ, we no longer need to keep the Law. In one sense we do not need to keep the Law: we do not need to keep it as a condition for admittance into fellowship with Jesus Christ. Because apart from Jesus Christ it was and is impossible for us to ever meet that condition. Truly, the Christian has been justified apart from works by grace alone. But having been admitted into fellowship with Jesus Christ, shall we not continue in it? Having been enabled to know and follow Jesus Christ, shall we now refuse to do so? The Law is the expression of the perfect, whole life with God and mankind, as I said before: full of respect and love and honesty and integrity and purity and safety and fellowship and peace and joy and goodness. Shall we really give that up? May it never be--and yet, that is just what these "Christians" do when they refuse to take seriously the commands of God. They give up God's best in order to pursue their own personal gratification--i.e. the very things that were leading them to death and from which they were (supposedly) saved by trusting in Jesus Christ.

Is that "freedom in Christ"? The freedom to do the things that were leading you to death? The freedom to run away from God's will? The freedom to defy and spurn God (who gave you true freedom) like the most obstinate unbeliever?

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I mentioned, earlier, that I've been listening to sermons by Francis Chan of Cornerstone Community Church of Simi Valley. His sermon, "Fighting Hypocrisy in the Church" (3/25/07) speaks to some of the issues I am raising here. But I bring that up now because he has a particularly poignant answer to a certain kind of objection that may be present in the mind of some readers at this point.

Some of you might be thinking that this will sound particularly unattractive to non-believers. I said that this post is addressed to people in the Church, but that certainly won't stop the unchurched from reading it. And they might conclude, from my harsh critique and perhaps-angry tone, that they don't want to have anything to do with the Church or with Christianity because of what I've said. My tone, perhaps, seems judgmental or unloving. But Francis Chan has suggested that something like this message is exactly what non-Christians will want to hear and should get excited about, because what I am doing here is confronting the problem of hypocrisy in the Church--the problem of people who claim to be followers of Jesus, but don't actually lead a life marked by His power or the pursuit of His will.

Did you realize I was talking about hypocrisy? I didn't pick up on it immediately in Francis' sermon, even though it was part of the title. I don't think this is how we usually formulate the issue, but that really is what this has all been about. And, of course, non-Christians often see, more clearly than the Christians do, the hypocrisy that plagues the modern Church. There is good reason to think that the non-Christian would heartily agree with everything I've said so far (as ironic as that proposition might sound initially).

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So where do we go from here? The Church and Christianity, I have asserted, are primarily (or solely) about following Jesus Christ in obedience. That must come first. From that flow true love for people and lives of true joy and peace and the Fruit of the Spirit.

One good place to start is with the simple question: Are you, Christian, committed to following Jesus Christ?

Have you acknowledged that His way is truly best--so that whenever His will differs from your own, you choose to follow His? Do you understand that you cannot reach His best for you apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in your life--so that you rely more and more continuously on the Holy Spirit in every aspect of life? Are you committed to drawing closer to Him--so that the very shape of your life is altered toward fulfilling that goal?

The second question that I might ask, and which will be the substantial focus of the material to follow, is: Are you, Christian, fellowshipping with other Christians? This touches on the topic of Christian community.

My thoughts have tended toward this area of late, in part, because I am "between" Christian communities. For the past four years I have been a part of the communities of Azusa Pacific University and Glendora Friends Church. Now I am at UC Riverside, more removed from the people with whom I would normally fellowship, looking for a church community in the area and fellow Christians with whom to share in our common Life and Faith.

So the value and importance of genuine Christian community has been large in my thoughts lately. But as I think about all the benefits and goods that come from it, I am also reminded of the problems that arise from less-than-genuine Christian community.

Let me begin with a quote from Bonhoeffer's "Life Together" that I've mentioned before, but bears repeating:

"The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer. ... The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians. ... Visitors and visited... recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body; they receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord, in reverence, humility, and joy. They receive each other's benediction as the benediction of the Lord Jesus Christ."

I think that there can be no friendships deeper than those that we share with other Christians. Because it is with Christians that we are able to share the deepest and most precious part of us--our relationship with Jesus Christ. Certainly there may be many common interests that we share with non-believers, we may care for them and enjoy their company for a variety of reasons--but we cannot share with them that deepest love and longing of our hearts. I am so thankful for those friends of mine who share my desire to follow God in love and devotion and obedience. They inspire and encourage me, hold me accountable, support me in hard times, and walk alongside me on our common journey.

The good things that come from true and genuine Christian community are unbounded. It is for just that reason that hypocrisy in the Church is such a dreadful problem. When, within the Church, there are people who claim to be Christians but who do not genuinely desire to follow Jesus, then the circle of that close and intimate fellowship is broken. I am no longer free to share with all the believers my heart's desire and deepest passion--"share" in the sense of "have in common"--because we don't have that desire and passion in common. Our aims are different. I can no longer be certain that I will be received with unconditional love and acceptance and grace and mercy. I can no longer trust that my brothers and sisters will hold me accountable when I stumble and fall and stray from my First Love. It's like I'm part of just another worldly community.

One of the most heart-breaking consequences of this hypocrisy in the Church is that it forces me to choose between my relationships with those people and my relationship with God. I remember one time, in high school, when a group of students broke some important rules behind one of the teacher's back. And I had to choose between my love and respect for that teacher, and my relationship with those students. I really did love that teacher; he was a mentor and friend, an incredible man of integrity and goodness who cared about his students. I also cared about my relationship with those students; I didn't want to run crosswise of them; I didn't want to "betray" them. Why couldn't they just abide by the rules? Then I wouldn't have to choose between them and my teacher.

Why don't all "Christians" commit themselves to following God? Then I wouldn't have to choose between them and God. And don't think that you or I can walk some middle road. The aims of any person who is not following God (whether or not they call themselves "Christian") will invariably run contrary to the aims of God--the two are incompatible and force a choice.

And this is the point where the fear that I mentioned in my introduction hits me with full force. Because in contemplating this, I must make a choice. I cannot pretend that raising this discussion is enough--that I have "done my duty" by, perhaps, pricking the consciences of some. Instead, raising the issue (even abstractly) raises the question FOR ME and I cannot escape it. I must either choose to follow Christ or else "damn" myself. (How else could you characterize the decision to accept or reject Christ's call and way.)

Whom do I include in my circle of Christian fellowship? That is the question I am asking right now. (Again, this discussion has very little to do with non-believers, in case anyone is worried.) Who are the people with whom I can share a common love for the Lord? Who are the people who will hold me accountable? Who are the people whom I can trust? Who are the people who only pretend, calling themselves "Christians" but not truly committed to walking with Christ. And how shall I treat such people, as Scripture has instructed.

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I close with a quotation from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians.

"For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word [ministry] of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (5:14-21)

My brothers and sisters,

I beg you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.

Be reconciled to God.

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I give thanks and praise to God, though it is sometimes beyond my capacity to bear and so painful for me, that He is teaching me:

God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.