Throwing Jesus Off A Cliff

If you consider yourself “human” (which I have yet to receive any hits on this blog outside the sphere of our planet), then we should never be surprised as to how people react when they feel threatened, hurt, offended, or angry. It’s not that I am advocating that some of those reactions are justified or warranted, but I am simply expressing the fact that when it comes to our humanity, all of us are capable of doing things which are beyond the confines of what we would consider “normal behavior.” For instance, take an incident which happened around two thousand years ago in which an unruly mob decided that they had enough of someone’s banter and they decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, this someone was Jesus. Luke 4:29 describes their reaction as being “They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff.” Apparently, the ministry of Jesus to his hometown synagogue did not result in the congregation having that “kumbaya” feeling that is so prevalent in the church of today. This is the “loving and kind” Jesus! The One who “would never say anything to hurt us and make us uncomfortable” Jesus! What could He had possibly said or done that would cause these callously violent individuals to throw Him off of a cliff?

When Jesus came to the synagogue, He announced the fulfillment of what the prophets of the Old Testament testified of who one day would come to install God’s kingdom on earth. As Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 in saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” (Luke 4:18), the statement and all of the connotations with it echoed the anticipated arrival of the Messiah. Jesus’ action to open and close the scroll and then sitting down, verified his authoritative claim of “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21)----and this is where the problems began. The response was typical of a Sunday morning church crowd in many churches of today, “That was a nice message” and then “let’s critic the pastor!” Those in the synagogue “were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips” (Luke 4:22). There was a great sense of “wondering” why Jesus said what he said and furthermore, appeared to assign himself to the role of Messiah. Their response of “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” was more like our modern day response of “who does he think he is?” They had already heard the reports of what Jesus had done in fulfilling the Scripture which he announced from Isaiah 61 (Luke 4:23) and now, He began to expose the content of their faithless hearts (v.23-27).

As one reads Luke 4:16-30, the question of “Why didn’t they believe Jesus?” comes to mind. Sure, they knew Him as Joseph and Mary’s son, but they also heard of the teachings, healings, and the power of God that flowed through His life. Ironically, many in the church have heard the same stories about Jesus. They know all about who He is and what He has done, and yet, they still have so much unbelief! The problem is simple: “familiarity breeds contempt.” The church of today loves its comfortable and predictable setting. Ours is a world of enjoyable sermons that allow us to sit week after week in the church pew and never be confronted with the truth of needing to submit our lives under the lordship of Christ. We don’t see Jesus as the KING but we see Him as someone just like us and when He asks of us more than what we are willing to give, we no longer want “that kind of Jesus” in our midst!

The Jesus that came to Nazareth was an all too familiar face to those in the synagogue. Because of that, there was no room for Jesus to assert the authority of being Messiah in their lives. Jesus explained to them that those who understood the authority of the prophetic word and chose to submit to it were propelled into a life of freedom (Luke 4:24-27). Jesus said, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor” (Matthew 13:57) and the result is that Jesus did “not do many miracles there because their lack of faith” (v.58). Week after week the people of God sit in God’s house and many are not moved by the Spirit of the Lord. We causally stroll into our seats with coffee cups in hand as if we are going to an entertainment venue and we prepare ourselves to go through the same old familiar routine that we do week after week. We’ve mastered the art of being able to have our brain in two places of concentration at the same time (perhaps this is the only supernatural thing that happens in our churches) as we are able to simultaneously read the bulletin while absorbing the truths from the Word of God. We know that the Jesus of “our church” would never point out our weaknesses, flaws, and God forbid, say anything about our “sin.” And if by chance, He would venture through the message of the pastor or a word through the worship leader to “offend” us, then we do what all respectable mature children of God do-----throw Jesus off a cliff!

If we truly want the answer of why we do not see more of the power of God in the church of today we may want to look at the depths of our own hearts. The Spirit of God is not being poured out in power because we do not allow Jesus to be the One who He claims to be! If we actually believed that He is Lord and King then we would cease doing much of the things we do. We would no longer remain the same people we have remained week after week in the church. There would be no such thing as “offense” and when we gathered together for worship, there would be a reverent awe that would fill the church rather than the smell of coffee and the chatter of the latest sporting events. People would not look bored out of their skulls but they would approach the throne of grace with humility, gratitude, and a love for Christ. Furthermore, all agendas would cease except for the one that says, “We just want to glorify our King.” In the end, we truly have to ask ourselves if we want Jesus to be the One who He claimed to be for our lives or are we content with believing something about Him that he never claimed to be? Jesus is not your “friend.” He is not someone who can stoop to that level of familiarity in your life. He cannot be reduced to just another face in the crowd of people in your life----HE IS THE KING OF KING AND LORD OF LORDS! And either you must accept that and respond accordingly or you will continually attempt to rid of his presence in your life by trying to throw Him off of a cliff. If you choose the latter, you will certainly experience what many are experiencing in the Body of Christ, “…he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” (Luke 4:30).

To the Shame of a Rising Generation

As I am writing this post, I am still processing the events of the weekend in which I spent with 7,000 teenagers who demonstrated to passion to recklessly pursue God. One could make several arguments about some of the things that went on in this massive movement of motivating youth to take their place in the kingdom of God and some of what went on in that arena was in my opinion a waste of time (some of the “bands” chosen to play demonstrated nothing but a strong image of being like the world is an attractive endeavor). There is one thing, however, I still cannot escape and if you are an adult reading this blog, prepare to be rebuked (just as I was rebuked by the Lord)!

There was a moment on the final evening where the youth were challenged to actually abandon themselves and attempt to worship God with every ounce of their being. The speaker spoke of King David who unashamedly became “undignified” before the Lord in a holy pursuit of worshiping the Lord. It was a holy moment but it was full of passion! The place erupted with thousands of teenagers and adult leaders letting themselves go for the sake of simply telling Jesus, “With my entire being, I will love you! ----dancing, shouting, crying out to God as an army of worshipers who wanted to let the General of their Soul know that showing their allegiance to Him was more important than the dignity of their self-image. After things came to a holy hush, I was confronted with one of the most convicting questions I have been asked by the Lord in quite some time: “Why did they have to be motivated to abandon themselves to Me?” 

In that moment, I felt somewhat ashamed. Here is a generation of young people who sit in their churches week after week and seldom to almost never see the worship of adults with such unbridled passion. After all, we’re way to dignified and postured to look like fools in expressing our love to the Creator of the Universe. We like to convince ourselves, “I’m more of the reserved type.” I’ll simply respond with the truth, “You’re a liar.” You are simply more passionate about saving face in keeping your self-image than in losing it for the sake of worshiping God. Sure, many will claim that in the Acquire the Fire atmosphere the music and speaker serve only to “manipulate” the teens to have an emotional experience. If we were not created to be “emotional” in worship then why were you created with emotions? To repress them in order to not be so “radical” in demonstrating your love for God? 

The reason these teens had to be encouraged to “abandon themselves” fully in worship is because the older generation has not taught them to do so. Instead, we want a “respectable “ form of worship that seeks to maintain a “form” of worship but controls the “god of self” from being humbled and even “humiliated” before the One True God. The Bible is full of expressions of worship and yet we pretend that it is much like a menu at a fast food restaurant. We pick and choose the expressions that are comfortable to us and ignore the expressions that actually require a “sacrifice of praise” unto the Lord. Is God not worthy of the sacrifice of our dignity for the sake of giving Him all of ourselves in worship? Does not the Bible admonish us to “Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul, and with ALL your mind, and with ALL your STRENGTH”? (Mark 12:30). Our reserved-ness is killing the spirit of worship in the future generations. What will happen when the day comes as the Bible warns (see Matthew 24-25), when a radical line will have to be drawn in where your allegiance lies? If we’re ashamed to freely worship God in the safety of the Body of Christ----do we think we will stand up for Him with a sword at our throat? We are communicating to this next generation that “worship” is a concept of the mind and that we are not to be moved by God’s presence in a way that radically affects our entire being. We are communicating to this rising generation that Christ is not worth giving ALL to as they observed our posture toward this “GOD” that we claim we “love so much.” We have way too much dignity and pride to be moved with a passion for God to the point where we are visibly showing our complete abandonment to all of our common sense---and yet on a cross, Jesus hung NAKED and SHAMED so that we could even have the privilege to come into the presence of the Lord!   

Why can’t we just be honest to ourselves and to the generation that has watched us model “worship” before them? Why can’t we come to the truth that we really do not love God that much? Why don’t we simply tell them that there are limits as to how far we are willing to go in order to publically acknowledge our love and passion to a God who loves us passionately? We break the heart of God and we do not care! We are raising a generation of young people who will we overly saturated with head knowledge of Jesus, and yet have absolutely no clue as to how to worship and experience this relationship that we claim as being “so wonderful.”  Pastors who quench the expression of worship in your churches SHAME ON YOU FOR GRIEVING THE SPIRIT OF GOD AND SELLING OUT THE RISING GENERATION FOR THE SAKE OF MAINTAINING NUMBERS IN YOUR CHURCH! WORSHIP IS OFFENSIVE TO THOSE WHO DON’T WORSHIP! WORSHIP IS OFFENSIVE WHERE THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION REIGNS! 

2 Samuel 6:23 give us the result of what will happen to the future generation if we fail to model and express worship as it was meant to be before the Lord: “And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.” Do understand the significance of this statement in light of King David dancing undignified before the Lord? Everything dies where free worship is hindered! There is no “next generation” to be raised up when we restrict the spirit of worship in our lives and in the Body of Christ. The lack of truly expressing ourselves in worship speaks to the fact that we are not worshiping. We are in control and if we are in control then we are still on the throne of our heart. I think of the old song, “Be careful little eyes of what you see…” and I realize what those little eyes have been seeing in the church….a pitiful picture of worship. We’re calculated, predictable, scheduled, and comfortable. And worse yet, we’re teaching a rising generation that “lip service” to our King is the most acceptable form of worship. After all young person, even if God takes everything from you in this life, at least you can still hang on to your dignity, as in the church today it is the most important thing. To this rising generation, I ask for your forgiveness in allowing myself to remain dignified in worship. To those I have led in worship for so long, forgive me for the times I have remained reserved and not allowed my passion to worship God to shine through my life. Finally, to my Lord and my God, I ask you to forgive me for allowing myself to be concerned about my image over Yours and may I never aspire to save my face for the sake of seeking Yours.

Welcome to the Masquerade

The concept of a masquerade party is an interesting thought when it comes to the Christian life. As people gather together at a masquerade party, they mingle while at the same time conceal their true identity by keeping a mask over their face. It becomes a world in which everyone is the same-----a room full of people who are playing a game of “guess who I really am.” The idea is to remain as hidden, inconspicuous, and anonymous as possible by not revealing too much about the person behind the mask. Otherwise, once you’re discovered, you have to reveal the person who was hiding behind the masquerade.  But what does this have to due with the Christian life? According to Paul, this is a very real scenario for believers to find themselves in the midst of the world they live.

The Corinthians were such a people who chose to live in the masquerade of the Christian life. Paul expressed that when it came to the difference between those who are experiencing life in the Spirit and those who remain in the world, that those without the Spirit were blinded or for our purposes, “masked” from seeing the truth. He writes, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The idea that Paul conveys when he suggests that those in the world are “spiritually discerned” is that they cannot make a proper judgment about the things of the Spirit. Much like a jury that enters a courtroom with no knowledge of what the details of a trial holds, so those without the Spirit have no clue as to what exists in the mind of God. God’s mind is hidden from them but the man of the Spirit has “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Like the Corinthians, we are probably thankful for the fact that we have the “Spirit” and we have been given the “mind of Christ;” however, does this mean that we are not ever “masked” from seeing the truth of God?

In the very next breath, Paul states to the Corinthians, “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly…” (1 Corinthians 3:1). In other words, Paul just explained that the “spiritual man” knows the mind of Christ while the man in the “world” does not and his rebuke tells the Corinthians that they are also blind to the things of the Spirit.  This was the major reason for all of the dysfunction in the Corinthian church. There was fornication, division, disorder, power struggles, prejudices, and an inability to understand how the Spirit was to function in the midst of the church body. The real issue in Corinth was that although they were “Christian” they chose to dress themselves up with the culture that surrounded them and thus, entered into the masquerade! If you continue to read the Corinthian story, you will discover that although they began to address some of these situations, 2 Corinthians reveals that false teaching begins to enter into the church (see 2 Corinthians 10-12). How does this happen? Simple. If a people in a church do not refrain from worldliness, they are unable to discern falsehood from the truth and the result is the embracing of things that are not from the Spirit of God.

Have we ever stopped to wonder why week after week and month after month churches continue to merely exist in what feels like an endless cycle of familiarity and routine? Corinth, as charismatic as it was, continued to “do church” in a way that they felt they should and yet, the Apostle Paul recognized that things needed to change. In our day, if someone suggests that we are “off track” or that what we are doing in our churches is not “spiritual” we tend to dismiss that individual as being “judgmental” or “legalistic.” After all, how dare they suggest that we cannot understand what God wants us to do because we are being too worldly in the overall environment of the church! No one should have a right to challenge the “freedom” we have in Christ-----isn’t that what we say? Forget the fact that some of those “freedoms” we dearly hold on to are products of embracing the worldly culture around us. Forget the fact that those “freedoms” we relish in are patterned after the philosophies and attitudes of worldly thinking. We simply want to believe what we want to believe and unfortunately, even if we don’t have the mind of Christ in the mix, we still believe in our right to believe it!

The problem, however, is that we have forgotten an all too important truth: we can still grieve the Holy Spirit of God. We can try to rationalize or justify our worldly tendencies just as the Corinthians did and pretend that what we are doing is right on track with making us the most spiritual of people. We can continue to taint our reputation as followers of Christ by presenting to the world a Jesus who is into all of the worldly activities that we pursue. After all, Jesus being free, would definitely sit himself down in front of a violent sex-laden “R” rated movie or relish in the music of our culture that celebrates much of what breaks the heart of God. The Corinthians sought this pseudo-expression of Christianity by believing they could worship in God’s temple while also enjoying the worship at the cult temples. This is why Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are “the temple of the Holy Spirit” two times in the book (1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19). The context of his first usage includes that idea that we need to be careful as to what we build our lives upon as he warns the church that anyone who causes “division” in God’s temple, God will “destroy” him. Does worldliness cause division in the Body of Christ? Does an attitude that infects a congregation which suggests “don’t judge me and allow me to keep pretending that my sin is perfectly acceptable” bring unity to the Body of Christ? This is why perhaps Paul had to remind a second time in the context of engaging in the temple cult worship that God cannot be joined with the world---the two cannot co-exist.

The overall problem of the masquerade is that we have come to believe that “who I am” in Christ is the finality of the Christian life. While I believe that “who I am” in Christ stands at the foundation of my faith, it does not eliminate the importance of “what I do” as a believer. We have masked ourselves in the church for too long from the truth that “WHAT I DO” affects “WHO I AM”----because “what I do” affects my ability to hear from God, please God, and ultimately worship God. Jesus and the apostles have made something abundantly clear in Scripture: the worst place to be in life is in being someone who knows who they are in Christ and yet chooses not to live in a way that shows they are in Christ. We may be “free” but God still holds us accountable for WHAT we do (1 Corinthians 3:11-16, 6:9-19). If we want to continue to embrace the “ways of culture” over the “way of the cross” we will discover something when we come to the end of that journey. We will find that we have been caught in a masquerade that has hidden us from an abundant life in the Spirit. We will discover that we have missed God while attending the ball. We will experience the pain of realizing that “we thought” we were heading in the right direction only to end up lost in the woods when the passenger that was with us all the time was telling us where to go. It’s time to remove the mask and see ourselves for who we are. It’s time to stop hiding behind the disguise of a worldly faith and accept the truth of WHO WE ARE TO BE in this world-----a people who are holy, separate and commanded to “come out from among them” so that God can receive us as “sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). If we fail to do so, we will never come to the place in our lives where we can discern the difference between the precious voice of the Lord and the voice of the world that seeks to deceive us.