Whatever Happened To Sin?

Have you noticed the trend in America to eliminate sin? No longer do we identify sin as that which leads to immoral behavior. No, we have become much to proper for that. Instead we blame our surroundings, our background, the people we hang with, our parents, some emotional instability, or call it deviancy. Today our society scratches its head and accepts the moral decay of America as a phenomenon that simply arises. This is not a new occurance. In 1979, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote, "I believe there is "sin" which is expressed in ways which cannot be subsumed . . . as 'crime,' 'disease,' delinquency,' 'deviancy.' There is immorality; there is unethical behavior, there is wrongdoing. And I hope to show that there is usefulness in retaining the concept, and indeed the word, SIN, which now shows some signs of returning to public acceptance."
Despite Menninger's hopes of the terminology of sin being once again prevalent in our culture, such is not the case. We continue to give it other, more acceptable labels that tend to distance us from the accountability of our actions. Unfortunately, many churches in America have chosen to follow suit and remove the terminology of sin from their pulpits. One prominent televison preacher who speaks to tens of thousands at every service told Christianity Today, "sin is not on the menu at our church." His reasoning was that people did not want to hear about their sin, they wanted to find words of hope and encouragement. The problem with this type of preaching is that there is no hope and encouragement until we acknowledge our sin, turn from our sin, and embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord.
In his book, The Disappearance of God, Albert Mohler calls this rejection of the notion of sin by our churches an abdication of the gospel. He remarks, "where sin is not faced as sin, grace cannot be grace." If we are going to have revival in our churches and across America then we must get serious about our sin problem. The church must lead the charge in once again calling sin, sin. We must recognize our sin and take responsibility for it, and repent of it. We cannot expect the world to take sin seriously until the church does. Whatever Happened To Sin? Nothing, it's still prevalent in our lives and separates us from a Holy God. Now is the time to confess our sin and be reconciled to God.

America In Crisis

We have been blessed over the years to live in a land of plenty. Americans are, by far, the richest people in the world. Our dilemma is not can we find something to eat, but rather what shall we eat today. We live in houses with air conditoning and heat, electricity and running water. We are indeed a very rich people. We drive to the grocery in our relatively new automobiles and walk down the aisles and choose what we would like to eat for the coming week. After we have purchased our groceries we stop by McDonald's, choosing not only to have a hamburger, but we pay someone else to fix it for us. Stocked with our groceries and filled with our hamburgers, we stop by the video store to rent a movie to watch on our television.
No wonder much of the world pays little attention to our cries of economic crisis. When 53% of the world survives on 2 dollars a day, its hard for them to muster up much sympathy for us simply because our choices have been adjusted from filet mignon to hamburger (still paying for someone else to fix it for us). While much of our world truly struggles to survive and deals with life and death struggles daily, we continue driving our cars, enjoying our latte's and watching our televisions. We may have a crisis in America, but it't not an economic crisis.
The crisis that America is facing is a spiritual crisis. We believe that the world exists for our good pleasure. We have been mistakenly taught that we have achieved our success. We are the reason that America has prospered. Good ole American ingenuity got us to this pinnacle of economic success. Decade by decade we have swallowed this lie and now we believe that everything that exists, exists for our pleasure. We believe we deserve the good things in life. We have taken the luxuries of life and renamed them "necessitiies."
We would do well to remember the words of Joshua to Israel for they are powerfully relevant to America today, "I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant. Now, therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness" (Joshua 24:13-14a). The crisis we face is one of our own making. We have forgotten who our God is. We have placed our trust in our own resources, intelligence, and wealth and have abandoned the God who has blessed us in the past. Christians, it's time to once again return to the Lord and place your trust in Him. Life is not about your pleasure; it's about honoring and glorifying God. We must quit crying about our economic "crisis" and take note of our spiritual crisis. Return to God and live for His glory!

The Church: Called to Display The Glory of God

In reading the Scripture we know that the task of the church is to display the glory of God to the world. This sounds like a clear answer until one begins to consider how one goes about doing this. How do we as individuals display the glory of God? What does it mean to display the glory of God? John Piper defines the displaying of the glory of God as holy perfection going public. I believe this is where the church misses the mark. No one would deny that we are to make Christ known to a lost world, nor that we are to display the glory of God.
The problem arises in that many Christians believe that these tasks are accomplished through our worship services. While it is true that our worship services must display the glory of God and should definitely magnify His Name; this is not what is meant by "holy perfection going public." I think what God has in mind is more in keeping with the statement of Jesus that we are to ". . . let your lights so shine before men that they might see your good works and glorify the Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
The church is made up of baptized believers. Each one of us make up the church. If we are to display God's Glory then we must each take the holy perfection, that has been imputed to us through the blood of Jesus Christ, public. We must start walking worthy of our calling as Christians. We are called to be set apart, holy, different from everyone else. The church must begin living out the faith we profess. Its time for the church to take God's Holy Pefection public by walking in the Word and living our lives in such a way that the world sees Jesus in us. Our world has yet to see the glory of God manifested by His Church. Now is the time! The church must rise up and walk in holiness so that the glory of God will shine and the world will magnify the Father.

Whatever Happened to the Church?

I've been reading a lot lately about mission work and church planting across the world. As I read and study the strategies these missionaries and church planters use to try to establish a connection with their respective communities I began to wonder why the local church is not more effective in doing the same thing.
It seems everyone gets excited and pumped up about going on a short-term mission trip to evangelize an area in Africa or some Indian village in the Southwest, but very few will even take a small amount of time out of their day to come together and devise strategies to do these same things in their own ministry field. I know of many associations and churches that are really pushing establishing new church plants. While I am all in favor of planting churches, in fact, I am in the process of leading our church to plant a church in a surrounding community, it seems to me that we are quick to send our resources to help start a work in a different area, while dragging our feet in our own local churches.
When we think of church plants we think of discovering the community in which the church will be planted, planning carefully how we are going to go about reaching this community and engaging in numerous evangelistic efforts to reach these people. I want to argue that if we would stop what we are doing (or not doing) and seek the heart of God and pray over our present community just maybe God would reignite a passion for the people in our neighborhoods. The church needs to become the church again. We need to develop a strategy to reach the people in our own community, plan and implement evangelistic events to reach the lost in our neighborhoods. Once we become a mission-minded church seeking to reach our local community, then we will be much more effective at planting churches in new areas to reach another segment of people. Whatever happened to the church? We grew stagnant and lazy. Its time for the church to rise up and develop a strategy to reach our neighborhoods.