The Elephant in the Sanctuary

When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest He said the greatest commandment is to love God.  Maybe that's because everything that distinguishes us as Christian spills forth from our love for God.  But of all the doctrinal issues and other subjects discussed in Brick and Mortar religion throughout America today, I think "what loving God means and what it looks like" is sorely neglected.

We've all heard stories about fathers who supposedly love their kids but they never spend time with them... They never talk to them.  I would suggest that the people who love God talk with Him.  Their prayer life is rich.  If we love God then He is our passion and the main focus of our lives.  Our love for God affects everything... How we treat other people and how we give.

But for the 21st century American I believe the most crucial teaching on what it means to love God comes to us from the apostle John's first letter when he tells us not to love "The World."  He tells us that if we love "The World" then we don't love God.   Jesus' kid-brother James tell us in his letter that if we frolic with the world... Make the world our playmate... If we make friends with the world then we are the enemy of God.  This is particularly disturbing  because it's hard to imagine stepping into Heaven and being greeted by anyone who is the enemy of God.

Because of these warnings I can think of nothing more important than figuring out just what this "World" is... This "World" we are not supposed to love.

 John 1:10 uses the word "world" three times:  "He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not."   I would translate it:  He was in the world system (culture), the planet was made by him, and the world (people)  knew him not.   I would suggest that the world system is the world that is controlled by Satan, his angels, and Satan's human servants.  This world is the world we cannot love if we are to love God and not to be counted among the enemies of God.

This is the world that mocks God.  This is the world that lies to us.  This is the world that is out to destroy us, to distract us, to separate us and our families from God.  This world is engineered to make us sick... Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  It is designed to coax us into walking in the way of the wicked, standing with the sinners, and sitting with the mockers... Definitely sitting with the mockers.

Back in the 90's I sat with the mockers every Thursday night when I invited a group of serial fornicators into my home... A group of individuals that had absolutely no fear of God.  These characters from the most celebrated sitcom ever made were my friends.  I was so disloyal to my Lord that I actually laughed at their sins.   Jesus suffered and died on a cross to fix what I was laughing at, and my attitude was "What's the big deal?"
 
Think of it!  What is the greatest accomplishment of Satan if it isn't placing into every home a conduit of the  "World" that the Bible tell us not to love?
   
But Brick and Mortar religion in America doesn't fear this world.  There are preachers in this country... Better men than I... Who in their worship services - without disclaimer - illustrate points by using clips from movies and television shows that wouldn't have been allowed on TV back in the 50's and early 60's because of their images and content... And no one in the audience is troubled by it.   I must ask:  How polluted by "The World" do you have to be to believe that network television isn't part of "The World" that the Bible tells us not to love?

But let's approach it from another direction.  What does loving God look like?  I believe that at some point in a saved person's life he decides that he's given "The World" his love and attention long enough.  He decides out of loyalty and because of a sacrifice that he can never repay, to honor God with his life...  That he will separate himself from God's enemies in Hollywood, on Madison Avenue, and even in Washington.   He decides he will strive to live between Earth and God without the pollutants that surround him.  He chooses this separated, Holy way of life because it's the best way, and the most honoring to God.

Now this is about the time when a preacher might feel moved to stand up and say, "Yes well, you're getting a little legalistic, and you can't earn your salvation,  and we're all just sinners saved by grace."

Really?   Is saving grace poured out upon every soul that darkens the door of organized religion?  Was Paul sent with his message of Grace to fix what Jesus said about the narrow way?... Was Paul sent to cancel what the writer of Hebrews expressed when he wrote that without Holiness we will not see God?  Are  the warnings in scripture made moot?  Are you saved by grace if you only push yourself away from the World's table for 90 minutes every Sunday morning to attend services, have an emotional experience, and wave Holy hands... Before returning home and resuming polluting yourself with The World?  Until we reconcile Paul's teachings of grace with the warnings in scripture, we are handing out false hope to people who need to examine themselves and repent.

Every Sunday we sit with people who are much more the Bride of "The World" than the Bride of Christ... People who have a much deeper relationship with Hollywood than they have with scripture.  They pollute themselves with "The World" daily and on Sunday they likely listen to a preacher who is having his own hot, sweaty love relationship with The World.

This is the elephant in the sanctuary.  This is brick and mortar religion in America.

Being Holy... Being -Set Apart- is an incredible challenge for the rich of the world.  And we who have never known hunger, nakedness or lack of shelter?...  In God's economy we are the rich of the world.  And I believe it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than it is for us to repent of our love affair with "The world."

Maybe the first step is to call it sin.  Maybe the first step is to recognize that every time we engage the World we are polluting ourselves with the world, and we are sinning.  I wonder if the first step might be to confess to God that you don't love Him... Because you love the World... But that you desperately want to love Him.

Until we preach Holiness... Until we seek to separate ourselves from "The World" and the wicked culture in which we live... Until then, we are just the Church of the Moral Lifestyle... We are just a gateway religion.

God uses gateway religion all the time.  People come and hear the word.   A few will read the Bible and decide to love God.  A few will, but most won't.  And sadly, among the rich of the world... The few becomes fewer.

I probably pick on television more than is proportional.  But TV is the greatest conduit of "The World" in my life and a deadly snare.  Most of the downfalls and failures in my life I can sum up with the old phrase, "Wine, Women, and Song."  The "Song" part is my sinful desire to cozy up to "The World" and be entertained.   Because of my past I know I am neither qualified nor fit to make choices for others and I know in my heart I will never be good at being good... But my desire to be Holy runs parallel with my increasing love for God.

The greatest commandment is to love God.  And we know that if we try to love both "The World" and God we mislead ourselves and others, becoming false witnesses of our faith.  If we pollute ourselves with "The World," Jesus can be little more than an ornament in our moral lifestyle.

Jesus does not have an adulterous bride.   His Bride may be tempted to love The World and she may often stumble, but she stubbornly seeks to love her Lord only.  She does not try to be cool and fit in with The World.  She does not court The World's favor but is content to be totally uncool... A tiresome outcast who is despised and mocked by The World.  She is not the Church of the Moral Lifestyle.  She is the Church of the Lord Jesus.  She seeks to be Pure, Holy, and Set Apart.  And as she walks down the aisle of life she is not looking over her shoulder to see what she is missing from God's enemies in the Entertainment Culture... Her gaze is fixed upon the Bridegroom standing at the altar.  She is a walking, breathing, Living Sacrifice who has taken up her cross...  And it is her love for the Bridegroom, expressed in Holiness,  that makes His yoke easy and His burden light.   And at her approach The Lord sees the Plain Jane that she is, with so many imperfections.  But He only has to look into her eyes to know that - she - will - have - no - other...  And our Lord sees a beautiful Bride.

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