Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Health, Wealth, and Suffering
Sermon
The preacher spoke of
Healthy, wealthy, and happy,
And I couldn’t keep my mind
From wandering down
The road marked with suffering,
To crosses, camels
And the eye of a needle
As he explained that faith
Was a bank account
In which the smart investor
Accrues interest
On his deposits.
-John Mirisola
At the very heart of the message of Christ is the lavish, insane, prodigal love of God. It is a love that held Him to the cross when it should have been us. It is a love that gives us everything we need if we are found in Christ. God desires to bless us richly. Paul tells us in Romans that we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. He has given us the Spirit of sonship and all the riches of His kingdom are ours in Christ.
It is good to remind ourselves of this and to live in this power and grace that was afforded to us by Christ. It is good to expect the best from God and to entrust ourselves to Him.
Though we are wise to joyfully anticipate God's provision and blessings, there is a great danger in overemphasizing God's blessings as we expect them. Sometimes we have very different ideas of what it means to be blessed by God than what God intends. There has been a strong movement in America that has spread to Africa and Asia that teaches that our faith in God is directly correlated to material blessings. A crude mixture of the American dream and a dumbed down version of the Gospel, it gains followers through promises of health, wealth, and prosperity. God is a Santa Claus who will give us anything we want if we just have enough faith (and donate to the preacher bringing the message).
I'm not saying that God never provides material blessings or that it is wrong to have money. What I am saying is that God is far more concerned with who we are as His followers than He is with our comfort or what possessions we have. What if His blessings come through overwhelming tribulation that push us straight to His arms and force us to realize our dependency on Him? What if Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and the author of Hebrews are serious when they tell us that we will face trials, hardship, persecution and difficulties in this world? What if the mystery of grace reaches much deeper than superficial possessions and temporary comfort? What if joy is not merely happiness but a consistent abiding in Christ through every circumstance? What if peace is more than an emotional, psychological state but a constant reassurance of God's presence in all things?
What makes the health and wealth gospel so heinous is it takes the incredible story of Christ's redemption and makes it all about us and what we can get out of it. It is a hollow, selfish, consumerist approach to the Most High God. But there is value in pain and suffering. There is joy in serving "the least of these." There is hope in learning how to be content in all circumstances. We are to be marked by the suffering of Christ. If we are His followers, we must serve and love as He served and loved, not seek comfort for ourselves. O that we would seek to serve Christ and bring Him glory at all costs, considering everything else rubbish for His sake; that we would find ourselves in Him, not in our comfort and possessions; that we would know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Love Wins
"Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as He made His way to Jerusalem. Someone asked Him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But He will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with You, and You taught in our streets.' But He will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me all you evildoers!' There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out..." -Luke 13: 22-28
This past spring, a megachurch pastor from Grand Rapids, MI drew lots of attention and criticism for his views on salvation, heaven, and "the fate of every person who ever lived" when he put out a book that lays the foundations for a more mainstream version of a fringe doctrine called Christian universalism. Rob Bell understands that the term "universalist" has a less than favorable connotation in the majority of evangelical circles (he hates labels anyway; they ruin the surprise) and, of course, says that he is not one. Love Wins is more an emotionally-driven opinion piece than a theological treatise but many people have found its argumentation compelling and convincing. Rather than laying out a solid Biblical argument for his defense of the doctrine, Rob Bell asks a slew of rhetorical questions such as "Are only a few people really going to be saved and billions will perish?" and "Could a good God really send people to hell?" or "If God really desires that all be saved, doesn't God get what God wants?" A potential alternative definition to the Greek word for "eternal" and some unanswered (but really they are answered indirectly) rhetorical questions later, we have a book that espouses the idea that eventually everyone who ever lived will be saved and go to heaven because God's love always wins regardless of whether we accept it in this life or not.
It's interesting that Rob Bell asks a question rhetorically that is repeated genuinely almost verbatim by a man in the Gospel of Luke (see above). However, instead of discussing how Jesus answers the question, Bell provides his own answer using some sketchy theology and selective discussion of Scriptures on the topic of salvation. The flaws in this approach should be obvious. God in human form answers a real question from a real person and it's not worth mentioning in a book that asks the same question? It's hard to understand why.
Without a thorough understanding of human depravity and the far reaching effects of sin and the fall, it would seem pretty unfair for God to "send" people to hell. But Rob Bell never once mentions the effects of sin on our relationship with God in his book. He talks only of how sin is what we humans do to each other. There's nothing in the book about our rebellious nature which leads to a broken relationship with our Creator, nothing about the justice and holiness of a perfect God Who cannot look on sin. There's nothing about the wages of sin being death or the desperate need for a perfect Savior Who emptied Himself and was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. We deserve death and the wrath of God for our blatant wickedness but He provided a way to reconciliation through the blood of Christ on the cross. We may choose this path of reconciliation and receive salvation or we may choose to continue to have it our way which leads right to hell. Nobody is being "sent" anywhere. With this understanding, the concept of heaven and hell don't seem so unfair, judgmental, and narrow after all.
Love does not win when what we do and believe do not matter. Love does not win when God's unfathomable sacrifice is a convenient catch-all to get into heaven whether you choose it or not. Love does not win when repentance doesn't really matter in the long run and when the sheep and the goats really aren't that much different after all. Love wins because a perfect, just, and loving God Who cannot look on our sin decided to take our punishment so that we may be reconciled back to Him. His sacrifice matters and so does our acceptance of it.
This past spring, a megachurch pastor from Grand Rapids, MI drew lots of attention and criticism for his views on salvation, heaven, and "the fate of every person who ever lived" when he put out a book that lays the foundations for a more mainstream version of a fringe doctrine called Christian universalism. Rob Bell understands that the term "universalist" has a less than favorable connotation in the majority of evangelical circles (he hates labels anyway; they ruin the surprise) and, of course, says that he is not one. Love Wins is more an emotionally-driven opinion piece than a theological treatise but many people have found its argumentation compelling and convincing. Rather than laying out a solid Biblical argument for his defense of the doctrine, Rob Bell asks a slew of rhetorical questions such as "Are only a few people really going to be saved and billions will perish?" and "Could a good God really send people to hell?" or "If God really desires that all be saved, doesn't God get what God wants?" A potential alternative definition to the Greek word for "eternal" and some unanswered (but really they are answered indirectly) rhetorical questions later, we have a book that espouses the idea that eventually everyone who ever lived will be saved and go to heaven because God's love always wins regardless of whether we accept it in this life or not.
It's interesting that Rob Bell asks a question rhetorically that is repeated genuinely almost verbatim by a man in the Gospel of Luke (see above). However, instead of discussing how Jesus answers the question, Bell provides his own answer using some sketchy theology and selective discussion of Scriptures on the topic of salvation. The flaws in this approach should be obvious. God in human form answers a real question from a real person and it's not worth mentioning in a book that asks the same question? It's hard to understand why.
Without a thorough understanding of human depravity and the far reaching effects of sin and the fall, it would seem pretty unfair for God to "send" people to hell. But Rob Bell never once mentions the effects of sin on our relationship with God in his book. He talks only of how sin is what we humans do to each other. There's nothing in the book about our rebellious nature which leads to a broken relationship with our Creator, nothing about the justice and holiness of a perfect God Who cannot look on sin. There's nothing about the wages of sin being death or the desperate need for a perfect Savior Who emptied Himself and was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. We deserve death and the wrath of God for our blatant wickedness but He provided a way to reconciliation through the blood of Christ on the cross. We may choose this path of reconciliation and receive salvation or we may choose to continue to have it our way which leads right to hell. Nobody is being "sent" anywhere. With this understanding, the concept of heaven and hell don't seem so unfair, judgmental, and narrow after all.
Love does not win when what we do and believe do not matter. Love does not win when God's unfathomable sacrifice is a convenient catch-all to get into heaven whether you choose it or not. Love does not win when repentance doesn't really matter in the long run and when the sheep and the goats really aren't that much different after all. Love wins because a perfect, just, and loving God Who cannot look on our sin decided to take our punishment so that we may be reconciled back to Him. His sacrifice matters and so does our acceptance of it.
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