Monday, July 27, 2009

Confrontation. Good or Evil?

Christian Brothers/Sisters don’t let other Christian Brothers/Sisters continue in sin.


Confrontation.

A word which most people hate and even think it to be sinfully wicked. But I have been persuaded otherwise by God’s words in scripture.

Our culture says that to truly love someone is to let them live their life and you live your life. So the individual has say over his own life and no one can say anything against his decisions or force their opinions upon others.


I believe this attitude has crept into our churches and has been dealt with in two main ways:

1.) People come to church and act like everything is okay so that no one has to deal with each other’s baggage.

2.) People call each other out to show spiritual superiority or to shame the other person and to get them to step back in line and act perfect again.

By God’s standard both of these responses are wrong/wicked and even sinful.

The first response is one which totally contradicts Gods ways for his followers and just neglects His word totally. Here is one we can examine:

Mat 18:12-20 what do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."

The reason I put verses 12-14 in as well was to give context and to show you that Jesus’ heart is for People, his desire is not for them to go astray into sin. Now when he starts talking about a brother, it is true that this passage specifically is talking about when a brother sins against you and not directly talking about confrontation in any other instance.

But one can see in the section that begins “truly”, that the power of people to overcome sin is stronger when more than one Christian is gathers to overcome it. If you look at the passage that way, to say that when you are confronting them you are desiring for that brother to be restored you can truly see how this passage shows that confrontation is really love and not hate and that love must be in Confrontation.


Another reason that I believe Confrontation is truly loving is shown in an example:

“Thoughts flooded the man’s mind as he walked down the musty road. Contemplating whether to just finish his life or not. His life had come crashing down the last couple of days and the weight had brought him to this point, where he thought he could never go again. See he had been through counseling and tried to help himself past this depression many times before. But now he was in this same familiar place again. He flashed back on his life and felt no worth in it. He saw no real reason to live. But yet his feet continued to walk down this back road. He was in a constant state of daze just walking with no real purpose and constantly fiddling with the knife in his pocket.

But suddenly, as he walked he snapped back into reality and realized he smelled smoke. He looked up and saw a trail in the sky and as he listened he heard people screaming for help. He wondered how a house could be out here in the middle of nowhere. But he couldn’t even help the screaming people if he wanted to. See he couldn’t even help himself how could he ever help those people?”


I believe most Christians are much like the suicidal man. They commit constant spiritual suicide and they have lost hope, they have tried to fix themselves to make themselves pleasing to God but all the time they have forgotten that Jesus is the only way and he paid it all and He is who they pursue. But they just wallow in self pity and guilt all the while Jesus is standing their waiting to take the chains off of them. Since a lot of Christians are like this they are also like the man in another way in that they see so much sin in their lives and see no hope so why should they call out anyone else? And I understand because there is a scripture that says:

Luke 6:39-42 He also told them a parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

So you shouldn’t call out people’s sin if you aren’t dealing with your own. This is true. But why should we hesitate to deal with our own sin? Do we love our sin more than Jesus? Do we truly believe that Jesus dies to save us from them and he can give us victory over them? If we take sin seriously as Jesus did when he died on the Cross we will first take care of it in our own lives then we will lovingly take our brother aside and help him be restored to the freedom of the cross in a pursuit of the God.


So now that we have seen the reason why reaction 1 is wrong now we can examine reaction 2:

First let’s take a look at that verse in Luke above. In this verse we see that you shouldn’t arrogantly call someone out on anything. You should first look at the sin in your own life.

Second from the passage we also looked at before with the sheep and the shepherd, We see that we must confront in love and that isn’t shown in just confronting someone and leaving them their but leading the towards Christ and helping them!


I believe as we have looked at the word we see Jesus was serious about sin being taken care of first in our own lives and then lovingly in the lives of others. Jesus took sin so seriously to go on the cross for it and die to defeat it that we may live thru Him. Will you take sin seriously and live like Jesus? Or will you not truly love people and live an independent life away from God?

Here are some more verses for you to check out. 1 Cor. 5,

Heb 3:13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Monday, July 6, 2009

A Serial Confessionist & The Holiness of God

Often in the early days of my walk with God I walked under many misconceptions which plagued me deeply. First of all when I sinned I would just confess my sin and pour out guilt upon myself continuously. See I believed that I was supposed to master my sin all alone, that I was “supposed” to be strong enough to win the “Victory”. But misconception was very deadly for one BIG reason. Christ had already paid for my sin on the Cross!! See God had come down into human history as a man, Jesus, and lived a sinless life and died on the Cross for my sin.
So as I began to grasp Christ’s forgiveness of me because I truly confessed my sin as 1 John 1:9 says “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I felt the weight of his forgiveness and Grace which was poured out upon me. But I quickly became what I like to call a “Serial Confessionist” which was someone who confessed their sins and truly believed that they were forgiven but never truly walked in freedom.
In many ways I still feel as though I walk in that serial confessionist way. I had known about the Holiness of God before but it never really sunk in until we began to talk about it and look at the text. But as we have been going thru 1 John in the college group at my church I have begun to realize a part of freedom that I had been missing and that is the Holiness of God.

1 John 1:5-10”This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

A lot of theses concept I had heard and studied but never really personalized them until recently. I knew that a Christian had to live a life of repentance but what did that look like? I thought it looked like confession and me fixing myself. But now I see that the Holiness of God is why Jesus came to die, not only for forgiveness.
See The Wrath of God and the Forgiveness of God or Grace collide at the Cross. And that is what gives us freedom as we receive His Forgiveness and pursue God, we also forsake our sin and pursue God’s holiness because we cant be in fellowship wit Him unless we are living holy lives. So will you confess and forsake and pursue God in holiness and forgiveness?



Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Apologies for dis-unity

I guess I should have done this before my other blog but o well. I wanted to apologies to all the people back home that I hurt when I first recommitted my life. Because back then I was very overbearing and didn't know what hill to die on and how to truly love others. I hope I can be reconciled with the bridges I possible burned. I don't remember most of them because it has been so long but if there are any I'm sorry. Have a good July 4Th. God bless!

Unity and Centrality around Christ.

Along my walk with Jesus thru Word of life, many churches, Swbts and hearing many speakers I have came to some conclusions.

1.) Many Christians divide over little details that aren't central.

2.)Alot of Sermons that are preached don't even have the right focus.

So what does Jesus Say about what should be central?:
"John 17:20-23 "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."
It's clear that Jesus prays for unity around himself and God the father. That we would be one as God is one. Man that is a deep truth to think about because How many of us truly have relationships with other believers that are "one". What does that even look like? Something I see is that the Calvinist and non-Calvinists fight over side issues when they both believe the Gospel, that God came in human form and died for sinful man to be set free from sin and death and set free unto Him. And the kjv only guys fight with everyone who doesn't have one and the Pentecostals fight with the Conservatives or the baptist with the non-baptists. But all this time Jesus prayed for our unity. So what does that look like in our lives? What hills are worth dieing on?

Another Thing is What should are Sermons be centered around? Well i believe Jesus answers that one too:
" John 5:38-40 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

This passage is unique in that Jesus is talking about the Witnesses that Testify to who he is. His audience is the disciples and the Pharisees. This direct quote was to the Pharisees who were the religious elite. They memorize mostly all of their bibles and studied it daily. Yet Jesus is saying they know nothing about it. Wow that's insane.
What does that say about us? I mean for me even before when I preached He wasn't always the Center. And a lot of preaching I have noticed tends to be around commands which are disconnected from the God who said them. Or we water down the truth and miss his word all together. But the truth is that our preaching should always have Christ at the Center and his Gospel as the main point. Do we read his word and miss Him? Or do we truly see Christ on the pages?