Not What You Do, But Who You Are
It's not just what you do, but who you are that matters.
The goal we're striving for determines the outcome we'll get. If our goal is right beliefs or behavioral conformity alone, we'll end up with disciples who can pass a theological exam or perform the right external duties, but who aren't truly being transformed by the Spirit of God at the level of their character. (Please note that I am not saying that right beliefs and behaviors are unimportant; only that they are secondary to true heart transformation. "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing" - 1 Cor 13:2).
Pay attention to what you hear and see around you, and notice what goal people are suggesting as the whole point of the Christian life. Over on the Musings blog last week, a commenter wrote, "[T]he eternal destiny of the soul and the resurrected body is the most important issue in human existence." I responded by disagreeing, and suggesting instead that "the most important issue in human existence is that God's kingdom would come and that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Certainly the destiny of the soul is a linchpin of Jesus' kingdom. But it's not the only thing."
Her comment, whether intentional or accidental, reminded me of the Willard quote we looked at this morning:
The American church today… aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people… [this] implodes upon itself because it creates groups of people who may be ready to die, but clearly are not ready to live. They rarely can get along with one another, much less those ‘outside’… They have found ways of being ‘Christian’ without being Christlike.
How have you seen this otherworldly gospel affect you or those around you? How is thinking about spiritual formation challenging you? What questions or thoughts does it raise? Hit "comment" below and enter the fray.
posted by Bob | 9:00 PM
8 Comments:
I've been reading the coram deo blog for a while now, lying in wait for the right opportunity to create some interesting diologue. Finally, I gave up on such an opportunity and decided to enter into whatever kind of diologue I can muster.
The past year has been an interesting one for me. I left the fellowship of Christ Community Church last summer to take a job at a Methodist church in Millard. After adjusting to the culture shock of Millard, I set in to adjust to the new "worship style" i was now a part of. I quickly found that I wasn't a voice in the desert calling a lost people back to true worship; rather, I am a worshipper, trying to figure out--like everyone else--what it means to truly worship.
At our worship services, I have seen exactly what you mentioned, that is people "doing," not "being." As a church grounded in years of tradition and liturgy, Faith-Westwood is full of dead weight in the pews on Sunday morning. But that's not the only type of worshipper I've found there...there are also many worshippers FULL of heart, filled with a desire to love God and be loved by him. Yet, what I believe is hindering those folks is the way in which they worship. Many of those folks, while very sincere in their Sunday desire to worship, show up on Sunday expecting to receive a blessing from God, or at best, to give him their weekly dose of worship. Not enough, though there are some, worship with their whole lives. A Tozer quote I heard recently, which I mention so that I'll be allowed back on the blog :), says that if God is not present in our offices, our factories, and our homes, He will not be present in our church services. This quote convicts me, because God is not always present in my office, my classroom, my car, or my home. Yet I expect him to show up and work miracles on Sunday's, so that I can know he is there for me. This is not true worship, yet I call it worship weekly.
God is revealing to me what my life looks like as a true worhsipper of God. Indeed, Willard is right in that being Christlike means right now, not when I die. I pray that God continues to reveal to me and to you all that which is true worship, and that which is acceptable and pleasing to God.
Good to hear from you Cody V!
Purely for the sake of dialogue I would like to take issue with the charge that we (the church) are a "doing" people and not a "being" people. While I agree that we have a long way to go in "being" shaped into the image/s of Christ; what I do not see in the church are a people who are "doing" the works of Christ so that we can "be" shaped.
Bob makes a fantastic point in quoting from 1 Cor. 13:3 "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." It seams that heart, not action, dictates the merit of our works here on this earth. However, I find far too many Christians (myself included), living in the comfort of the statement, "We are waiting to get our hearts on the same page with Jesus before we do the things that He has commanded us to do."
The rich young ruler in Luke 18:22 was informed that there was, "One thing that you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Jesus, in response to the man's inability to follow this command, goes on to teach, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."
Now hear me out. Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone for God's glory alone. We're good on the sola's. And furthermore everyone agrees that we will be judged not by our actions but by our heart (Matt. 15:18). Nevertheless, Christ clearly teaches in the story of the rich young ruler that certain things must be done in faith, certain idols must be left behind, if we are going to walk the narrow road of Jesus (spiritual transformation). The rich young ruler would never be able to wholly follow Christ as long as he kept his money so close to his heart. Jesus did not command the rich young ruler to "give your heart fully to me and not to your money." While that may have been implied, his command was, "sell all that you have and distribute to the poor." Jesus new that the rich young ruler could and would talk-the-talk, but he could not and would never be able to walk-the-walk. As long as his idol, in this case his money, was with him he would not be able to follow the narrow road that leads to transformation into Christ’s likeness.
There is a real temptation to make room for everyone in our "kingdom of god." -So you want to follow Christ and keep all of your old idols? We've got a place for you! Jesus did not. I worry sometimes that we invite the rich young ruler to come on in, trust Jesus and consider himself saved. We hope that maybe someday he will be transformed and give that dirty- idolatress money to the poor. While that sounds great, even ideal, Jesus taught that it just wasn't reality. Conversion does not happen that way, and transformation cannot happen that way. We must loose our own lives in order to inherit His, we must leave our idols behind.
Jesus concludes that, "what is impossible with men is possible with God." Who am I then to question a person’s salvation? It’s just food for thought. Sometimes that means "doing" something so that we can "be" transformed into someone else, lest we forget it.
"Doing" is to "chicken" as "being" is to "egg," right Todd? You can't have one without the other, and it's up for grabs as to which came first (crude, i know).
A question about the story of the rich young ruler:
It seems that Jesus knew he would never actually sell all his posessions, so he rejected the man. We don't have that unlimited knowledge. On one hand, we might say that we ought to trust God to reveal to us which persons to accept and which to reject, but on the other hand, that looks an awful lot like judging. So then, how do we know when to "cut off" a trusting-in-Jesus beliver who is not walking the walk? Is there a fine line between grace and justice?
Another thought: In the real world, how do we handle a trusting-in-Jesus person who is not transformed on the outside? At what point are we responsible to help that person along? At what point should we stop?
Last thought: Some of us, myself included, never had a definitive salvation moment like Todd describes in the St. Todd blog. The being and the doing just sort of worked themselves out into a deeper and deeper existence. At what point does someone like me actually "cross the line" of being enough or doing enough to be accepted in a community? Obviously we can never be or do enough to win our own salvation, but what keeps more seasoned believers from kicking me out when I have shortcommings? I am a sinner, so how should I expect my community to deal with me?
Cody V…
I humbly confess to both you and to everyone else the preface of my first comment, “purely for the sake of dialogue.” That is not to say that I do not believe in what has been written. It is more to say that I have intentionally swung the pendulum past Bottom Dead Center so that we might come to the very conclusion that you have set forth in your latest thread. You are right, spiritual formation requires both chickens and eggs; the order is not that important. A faith without works is dead, while a work without faith is meaningless.
In continuing this dialogue however, I will argue that whether Jesus new or did not know what the rich young ruler’s response would be to His ultimatum is irrelevant. Jesus did not reject the rich young ruler based on his wealth, or for any other character flaw for that matter. He rejected an obstacle to transformation that the rich young ruler was not willing to part with. While it may sound “a lot like judging,” Jesus did not come to judge the world but to save it (John 12:48). Jesus did not reject people while on this earth; he rejected obstacles to the kingdom, to mission, and to transformation.
While Jesus ministered on this earth he accepted everyone and anyone who was willing to be transformed. Jesus accepted the poor, the prostitutes, the sinners, the lepers, the tax collectors, and yes, even the rich. Zacchaeus, although a ‘wee-little man,’ was a wealthy sinner (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus accepted him and had compassion on him nonetheless. Interestingly however, Zacchaeus, in order to follow after Christ, agrees to give half of what he owns to the poor and to pay back everyone he has ever wronged four fold. Zacchaeus may or may not have still been rich at the end of his crusade, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter though is that Zacchaeus was willing to give up everything so that he could follow after Christ, something that the rich young ruler was not willing to do.
What we are really talking about here is the will to be transformed. Christ said that, “whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Whether conversion happens in a moment or over an eon, what matters is the will to abandon all for the sake of knowing Christ.
As a community we have a responsibility to accept everyone regardless of appearance. Jesus required no less. Sinners, who are being transformed by the power of Christ, are the church. But we do not have a responsibility to protect people from dealing with the obstacles that keep them from loosing their own lives so that they might inherit His. If anything, we, like Christ, have a responsibility to chase these obstacles out of the church so that transformation can happen (see Matt. 21:12-17). We have a responsibility to chase these obstacles out of the church, even if it means that we have to watch people leave with them (just as Jesus did with the rich young ruler).
Christianity can be a hard road, and we have been amply warned that the world will not love our message. Nevertheless, the benefits of seeing true transformation happening, the power of the gospel breaking down barriers, and the true kingdom of God thriving on earth as it is in heaven, far out way the shallow benefits of the have-it-your-way Christianity that we have come to expect from most American Evangelical churches.
wow, that's a great way to understand this scripture. On the surface, it seems that Jesus is telling the rich man that he cannot be a part of the Kingdom, but really he is saying that the rich man can't bring his riches into the kingdom! Looking at it that way, i would agree with you that Jesus neither rejects nor judges the man, but rather his sin.
I also understand what you are saying to mean that the difference between us and the rich man is not the fact that we have abandoned our sin to follow wrecklessly after Jesus (because most days that's not even true). The difference is that we want to let go of those things, even when sometimes we can't. While Jesus accepts both us and the rich man, we are willing to be transformed.
Am I getting warmer t-bake? :)
Interesting thread.
Cody, on the saved-but-not-living-it Christian: Bob would say "I disagree with the premise of your question." The fact is, someone who says they value something while not demonstrating through action that they do is lying. Will Walker uses the analogy of marriage in Kingdom of Couches to describe this concept- the vow is "I do", not "I want to", because marriage is a commitment, not a state of feeling. If you don't a love a girl enough to marry her, do you really love her?
I agree with Todd that commitment is what God wants, but that is going to look different for every person. Jesus requires absolute Lordship, and so the necessary sacrifice is whatever you hold more dear than Christ.
Discerning what that is for a person requires intimate knowledge developed in a trust relationship. So surprise surprise, we're back to community.
Cody's question remains, though, how are we to discern spiritual formation, or alternatively spiritual complacency? And since formation is a refining process, a continuous struggle, how do we determine progress?
The disclosure of heart idols must be a personal one and a voluntary one. It must be offered up to the community and our help must be sought by that person. What we can do as a community is to do that ourselves, to be open with each other and honest with our faults. And we must love and encourage each other through our struggles. Judgement takes a back seat to grace and love. So I think the question 'how do we judge?' is the wrong one.
And wouldn't a community like this, where such formation is the norm, be self-normalizing? How likely is it that someone who wasn't up to this kind of openness would abide in the group for any length of time? I am reminded of the Acts church, and how "none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly-" the requirements for such a group are in themselves enough to remove the half-hearted.
Lane - I totally agree with your views on ideal community, and I admit my need for more of this community in my own life. It sounds like the C.D. community is really striving hard after this type of community and all that comes with it, and I commend and pray for you all often.
I also believe God has me at the Methodist church for a reason, and the "saved-but-not-living-it-christians" that attend our worship every week are a large part of that reason. Whether those non-practicing "Christians" are lying about their salvation or not, I have to remember that I need Jesus daily as much as they do.
I pray for an awakening of souls in our church all the time, and I would also covet your prayers when you think of me--pray that God will use me to stir up "Acts-like community," even in a mainline methodist church!
As a former Methodist, Cody, I know a little about the uphill struggle you are taking on, so you have my prayers.
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