Category: Bruce’s Blogs

Many people outside the church accuse Christians of being hypocrites. Technically, hypocrisy is a matter of professing a set of beliefs that you don ?t really believe. However, our culture ?and many Christians ?believes that hypocrisy is a matter of saying one thing and doing another, being two-faced. While that might seem like splitting hairs, the subtle difference between hiding one ?s true beliefs and struggling with sin in our lives is lost on the people of our culture.

Regardless of the misunderstanding, the disparity between the preaching and teaching of Christians and the lives of Christians is a stumbling block to many who are not Christians. They hear the words ?love God and love others, ? but they don ?t always see it or experience it when they interact with Christians. Then they walk away.

The fact is, Christians don ?t really fit in this world, even though we live in it. When the world sees us trying to fit in, even though we claim we don ?t fit, they don ?t see the value of being one of us. If we want to close that gap, we need to be what we were made to be: holy.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:2: ?To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ?their Lord and ours. ? The church in Corinth existed in the ?sin city ? of its day, and Paul ?s letter was intended to remind Christians that they were made to be different.

Even though that difference separates us from the ways and thinking of the world, it ?s not meant to separate us from other people. God ?s plan is to connect us to himself and to others through holiness. We can ?t hide the fact that we share with the world a common sin problem, but we also need to share the differences we have, the call to holiness. That common solution, which connects us to God through Christ, will connect us to others as well.

Since I was diagnosed to be diabetic in September 2007, I ?ve had to watch what I eat. As a result, some of my clothes are becoming so baggy that I will need to replace them soon. (As a side note, thanks to everyone for the encouragement along the way ?keep it up!) Oddly enough, as thrilled as I am with the weight loss, I have been hesitant to purchase new clothes. I think it ?s because I ?ve lost weight before, and I ?m afraid that I ?ll bounce back to where I was.

It ?s the same thing with sin. We ?ve become so accustomed to the ?weight ? of the sins in our lives and the habits of living with those sins that we hesitate to get rid of them. Even when we decide to follow Jesus and allow him to forgive our sins and give us new selves, we hesitate to get rid of the old ways because we ?ve bounced back there before.

In Ephesians 4:22-24, Paul wrote: ?You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. ? Paul says that we need to discard the old self, but then, we knew that, right? The hard part is in the word translated ?put on, ? which literally means to sink into. Some uses of the word translate it as ?invest. ? In a sense, Paul is telling us to invest in some new clothes, to sink into our new selves as if into a new set of clothes.

Verse 25 says to put off falsehood and put on truth because we are the members of one body. The rest of chapter 4 talks about different sinful habits to get rid of and what to put on to replace them. Ultimately, we all have the same problem ?can we call it ?sin handles ?but because we are members of one body, we need to work on losing the weight of sin together. Get rid of the old self; you ?re not going back because you ?ve got new clothes ?and spiritual workout buddies as well!

The sermon series that we are going through right now, ?Life360, ? has been exciting to preach. The sermon on April 27 dealt with ?Faith: Broadband Beliefs, ? the idea that our faith is developed when we hear, read, and study the Bible and then live it out. The exciting part of that sermon was the realization that, even though each of us has an individual faith, we are connected by the common beliefs of the Bible. OK, we ?ve probably understood that at a very basic level, that we share biblical beliefs in common. However, not only do we have common understanding of facts found in the Bible, but that foundational faith connects us together.

The sermon pointed out Hebrews 10:25, which tells us to meet together and to encourage each other. About what? We went back to Hebrews 2:1 for the answer: ?We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. ?

If we truly want to live the ?abundant life ? that Jesus promises us (John 10:10), we need to hold on to what we have heard from God ?s Word, and we need to read it and study it, and then we need to live it. But we don ?t have to do it on our own. We are members of one body, and we need to continue meeting together so we can encourage each other and make sure that ?we do not drifty away. ?

Obviously, we cannot neglect coming together to worship on Sunday morning. It ?s the best place to find the core of discipleship ?worship, study, fellowship, service, witnessing, and prayer ?all in one place. I ?d suggest, however, that the single hour is only a portion of what we need to connect to each other through the truth of the Bible. If you ?re not a member of one of our Sunday morning Adult Bible Fellowship groups, start checking them out and find one where you can connect with adults who are near your age or who are in your stage of life. These groups meet to study the Bible and to fellowship, encouraging each other so that we do not drift away.

I ?m not good at relationships, but I ?m getting better. How do I know? Well, God and I communicate a lot more than we did before, and more and more frequently, we communicate about other people.

I suspect that my prayer life has been a lot like most people ?s: about my needs, when I have needs. But that started to change dramatically when I began participating in a men ?s group in Cincinnati. We spent a lot of time in fellowship, talking about our week, sharing our struggles, encouraging each other, and studying the Bible, but we spent most of our time in prayer.

I had never experienced such prayer times before ?sometimes as long as half an hour. While that really isn ?t a long time, considering there were about six to eight of us any given night, it was a long time for a bunch of guys. We started praying those perfunctory prayers: ?Thank you, God, for this and that ? and ?God bless us all ?; we were just on auto-pilot. At some point, our prayers changed. Instead of praying for someone who had an illness, we boldly asked for healing. Instead of thanking God for his power, we openly thanked him for deliverance from addiction. We prayed about promotions, parenting skills, and even traffic tickets.

The thing is, I can ?t say whether our prayers changed because we got closer or whether we got closer because of our prayers. Either way, it ?s clear that there ?s a connection between our relationships and our prayers. In his letter of encouragement to Timothy, Paul writes: ?I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone ? (1 Timothy 2:1). If you would like to grow the connections you have with your brothers and sisters in Christ, grab a copy of the weekly prayer list at the welcome center or ask to have it sent to your email address and join us Wednesdays at 1:15 in Mark ?s office for the weekly prayer meeting.

For some reason, church membership is a tough topic. Reading the New Testament, it seems the early church understood that when you become a Christian, you are a ?member ? of the church. Just as when a child is born he becomes part of the family, when a person is ?reborn ? they become part of the church family. Just as there are roles, rights, and responsibilities to fulfill within a family, the early church seemed to understand the same for being a Christian.

Today we seem to believe that being a member of a church is like being a member of any other organization, and so we come and go as we please, withhold our support when we are angry, and pick and choose how and when we participate and even submit to the authority of the leaders. Maybe it ?s because we have a lot of choices among churches or because it ?s so easy to place, transfer, or quit membership. Whatever the reason, we seem to forget that being a member of the church is more like being a member of a body or a family. We recognize the tragedy of broken families, and we are disgusted by the thought of a dismembered body, but we don ?t always place such importance on the connections we have as the body of Christ.

Even though ?membership ? isn ?t a requirement for being a Christian, we must recognize the connectedness we have to each other because of our own relationships with Christ. Paul writes about this in Ephesians 2:19-22: ?You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. ? The church is not a loose association by simple choice; we are connected to each other because we are members of the body of Christ. Let ?s continue to work together as he builds us into that holy dwelling.