Why is it that we, as an American culture, are so unwilling to correct other people? A friend of mine, whose depth and discernment in matters of ministry and working with people humble me greatly, mentioned tonight in our small group that the root of our paralization towards this most serious of callings is, at the kernel, a problem of humanism. We value the preservation of the stale and weak relationships that are damaged by accountability far more than we value the righteousness that is preserved by honest and loving correction. Our relationships are to be an adornment to the work of Christ in us; instead we often use our faith as bauble to make our human relationships seems less shallow.
I have recently been reading Hard to Believe, a book by John MacArthur. I am not normally a huge fan, but this book has compelled me to examine some of the ways we dilute the message of Christ by sanitizing the message to appeal to the masses. The leadership in most churches is so concerned about getting “meat in the seats” that they often end up, by design or by ignorance, either reducing the authority of the scriptures or reducing the exclusivity of Christ’s message. This is more than unfortunate, it is tragic.
At the end of the day, after everything else is boiled or burnt off, what matters most is our calling and how we have fulfilled it. My wife is in the difficult position of being a lone voice of truth to her mother in a time when she has surrounded herself by ear-ticklers, people who are either not believers, too immature to understand their obligation to correct her, or by weak believers who believe that keeping on good terms with people is better than holding them accountable.
At one point during college, I was engaged to a girl who was poisonous to my spiritual life. I don’t blame her, for I was partaking of the poison gratefully, believing not that it would make me happy, but that perhaps it would make me forget how pathetic my life really was. It was strictly a numbing agent, like novocaine for the soul.
During this time in my life, when I was still frequently seeing my friends from church and college, I was approached, corrected by and subsequently cut off from two friends. I was cut off from them because I blew them off. I looked them in the eye and told them with a straight face that I was doing what was right for me and that I didn’t need their correction, and even questioned their motives in correcting me. To my shame, I called them names and made a mockery of them in front of my other friends.
Months later, as I was coming out of the fog a physically (a life of debauchery and indulgence will kill you eventually) and spiritually frail man, I thanked those two friends for correcting me, despite my mockery and despite my total lack of response. Had I been a stronger man, I would have gone to my other Christian friends and asked them why they had not done the same to me. Why had they seen the same things these two faithful friends had seen and done nothing? Were they afraid of me? Were they restrained by the guilt of their own sins, feeling that I would attack them on those points if they were to approach me? I honestly believe that they simply wanted to not rock the boat, and were far more content to allow me to drift away, rather than to upset me. They valued keeping me happy with them more than obeying God’s word, more than bringing me back to repentance. It is true that more correction probably wouldn’t have kept me from doing what I did, but the lack of potential for results does not excuse the lack of effort. A doctor with a 30% chance of success will still try to excise a malignant growth from a patient because that is his job, his calling. He takes an oath to that effect.
We as Christians take a similar oath by claiming that title. If half the people around me had taken that oath seriously, I would have been the subject of a spiritual vivisection that would have been impossible to ignore. I am thankful for this experience now, because it has shown me the importance of correction in a believer’s walk. It has shown me that I have an obligation to correct brothers in Christ when I seem them sinning.
We always look to Matthew 18:15-20 when we talk about church discipline. It is good that we do that, because that is our model. But just as important as those verses are the several that precede them.
12“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?
13“If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.
14“So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.
We are to correct our brothers because it makes God happy when one comes back. We are to be God’s image-bearers here on Earth, and as such, we get to share in the joy that God has when someone comes back from disobedience. Thank God that he promises to be faithful to complete the work he has started in us, and that we can rely on Him to never allow us to break his plans for us!
Posted on February 18th, 2007 by Dad
Filed under: Learning, Rants
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