In 2001, Perry Falwell (not to be confused with Jerry) flew into the Sudan with members of the Christian Solidarity International to negotiate the release of over 2000 Sudanese slaves. In order to fund their redemption Perry paid for it, through his work. He was the lead singer of Jane’s Addiction, and his band donated the proceeds from one full concert to save the lives of these people.
Meanwhile, my parents did not allow me to listen to their music….and I was in college.
A Thin View of Sin
Now I don’t want to get into what kind of music we should listen to. I say this because one of the chief problems I see facing churches as we move forward is our thin view of sin. This comes out in a thousand ways, but I hear about it most with the way we talk about work.
Ever since I’ve been in ministry, I’ve had people complain about how hard it is to be at work, at the water cooler and hear someone use a foul word, or to have a co-worker talk about something immoral. We say it a hundred different ways but what we are trying to say is, “It’s so hard to work around sinners.”
This comes primarily from a view of sin that has been the most popular for the past several decades. It’s sin as a list of things that you should avoid, and the best way to respond to this is by not being around sinners, or places where these sins happen.
I normally turn around and assure people, that as someone who has worked most of my life in church, it is just as hard.
Because sin is more deceitful that that. As soon as we think that we’ve got our sin problem licked, we discover (at least hopefully) that we have made pride our new sin. If we are honest we realize that our heart is an idol factory and that often we haven’t removed the sin, we’ve just replaced it with a more religious version of it.
This is why some of the worst people that you know are Christians, it doesn’t have to go with the territory, but it does sometimes. If you can get God to agree with your definition of sin, and then just stick within it, it’s very possible to never be confronted with your own selfishness.
If I’m th get to define righteousness than you will certainly be righteous.
You may not be helping to free the slaves in Sudan but at least you don’t watch rated R movies.
The Tim Tebow Problem
One of the most surprising things about the Bible is the kinds of people God works through. If you are a church person you’ve probably heard a hundred sermons about Ruth or Rahab, but on a broader level God works in the Scriptures through pagan kings and armies and rulers and centuries as a way of blessing the world. And he does this often, without “saving” them and making them a part of his people.
I like Tim Tebow…really! I think he’s a stellar guy a great athlete and a mediocre NFL quarterback. I’m glad that he’s a Jesus follower, and that he gives young men a role model to look up to. But Tebow has revealed a problem with Christianity.
What do you do when there are better quarterbacks out there who don’t believe in Jesus?
We love it in our Christian sub-culture, whenever a star or celebrity makes it to a public forum or becomes a star. But the flip side to this is that God is working through all kinds of people to make the world a better place.
Tim Keller pastors a church in Manhatten, and one of the things he repeatedly pushes his church to do is to partner with the other civic organizations and affirm them and their service in New York. So Keller, a conservative Presbyterian ministry, is constantly affirming the homosexual community for the way that they have renovated so many inner city neighborhoods and helped the crime rate, or his Jewish neighbors who have worked hard to create human flourishing in New York City. And here’s what Keller says that I think is so important:
In The Christian story the antagonist is not non-Christians but the reality of sin, which (as the gospel tells us) lies within us as well as within them. And so we are likely to be on firm footing if we make common ground with non-Christians to do work to serve the world. Christians’ work with others should be marked by both humble cooperation and respectful provocation.”
Did you catch that? The bad guy in the Christian story isn’t someone, it’s the broken reality that Jesus calls sin. And because of common grace we can see God working through people outside of our tribe, our immediate community, or our faith. We can see the image of God in everyone. Keller goes on…
This means, ironically that Christians who understand biblical doctrine ought to be the ones who appreciate the work of non-Christians the most. We know we are saved by grace alone, and therefore we are not better fathers or mothers, better artists and businesspeople, than those who do not believe as we do. Our gospel-trained eyes can see the world ablaze with the glory of God’s work through the people he has created and called.
We don’t like working with people who don’t hold the same beliefs and values as we do, which ultimately makes our beliefs and values less influential in the rest of the world. And what’s worst we can’t see the glory of God in the work of the people all around us that he created.
