The challenge of being salt and light - Matthew 5:13-16

Matthew 5:13-16 New International Version (NIV)
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

The Church is made up of people attempting to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  It is made up of people who have been called from a state of living in darkness, who have been introduced to the light of the Gospel (the Good News of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on their behalf), and who by the power of the Gospel (through the Holy Spirit) have been transformed in their hearts and minds.  It is the will of God that those people, set free from bondage to sin, but not yet fully transformed to Christ-likeness, should remain living upon the earth to act as the "salt and light" that Jesus commanded them to be.  This is where it gets difficult.  Exactly how these redeemed, but not yet fully sanctified, disciples of Jesus can remain pure (salt) and at the same time live and minister in a world that remains dark (where they are to be a light) does not have a one-size-fits-all answer.
One option that has been tried from time to time in Church history has been that of withdrawal from society.  Beginning in the Early Church with hermits who literally withdrew to lonely places to avoid much of human contact, or even the Stylites ("pillar-dwellers" primarily in Syria) who lived at the top of stone pillars, to the later development of Monasticism where those living withdrawn from society did so in a community of like-minded people.  Without downplaying the importance of the monastic system for preserving knowledge from the Fall of Rome until the Renaissance, none of these attempted solutions were full answers to the command of Jesus, for while they may have been helpful in preserving purity (saltiness) they were at best only partly effective in sharing the Gospel with the Lost (being light).  If you withdraw from society, you may cut down on its ability to influence you toward immorality, but how can you influence it toward righteousness.  The same holds true for interactions with individual people, much of our potential sin involves interacting with other people, and so avoiding people might lead to less sin, but at the same time, most of our potential for righteous deeds involves interactions with other people, and curtailing those interactions will decrease righteousness as well.
Because withdrawal can, at best, only be a half or partial measure, the heart of the matter is how Christians can remain on the path of increasing Christ-likeness, thus preserving their saltiness, while at the same time engaging with the culture and people among whom they live so that their light will shine in the darkness.  The first step for any individual Christian in his/her need to be both "salt" and "light" is for that individual to not attempt the task as merely an individual Christian.  Like the Apostles that Jesus called to be in a community with him, and the other men and women who followed his ministry, Christians of every era, no matter how hostile or cooperative the culture they live in, need to be a part of something more substantial and more stable than anything they can do on their own.  The community created by Jesus, specifically for that purpose, is the Church.
How then does the Church help individual Christians retain their "saltiness" and enable their "light" to shine?  The purity (moral character) of individual Christians is enhanced and strengthened when they interact regularly with each other in community worship, prayer, service, and mentoring relationships.  It is easier to accomplish a difficult task, and rejecting sinful impulses to embrace a servant's heart of righteous self-sacrifice certainly qualifies as a difficult task, when attempting that task as part of a team.  Having other Christians by your side, to serve as both examples of how victory is possible, and to correct us when we go astray, is a boon whose worth cannot be calculated.  In addition, our ability to be a light in our community, to witness to the truth of the Gospel, is also enhanced by our connection to the community of believers.  One candle shining in the darkness will draw attention, yet it is difficult for that one light to sufficiently illuminate the way for others, but dozens of people holding lit candles will function more as a lighthouse or beacon.  For example: When a Christian participates in a ministry of the local church to which he/she belongs, like volunteering at a food pantry that the church runs, he/she not only gains valuable character shaping experience, but also is participating in an outreach effort that demonstrates to the Lost the love of God for them reflected in the love of God's people for them.
We don't expect all of our interactions as a Christian to be connected to our Church, at work and with our family and friends we will often be apart from the support and group effort of that community, but having the local church as one of the most significant aspects of our lives will absolutely make it easier for us to continue to be "salt" and "light" in those instances as well.

How important is your church community in your life?

How important is it to you to be in church on Sunday, to worship, pray, learn, and serve with God's people?

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are commanded to be "salt" and "light", it is not optional, to accomplish that task you need to be a part of the community that Jesus created.

Sermon Video: "Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved" Joel 2:12-32

In the midst of a message of woe, the prophet Joel shares the desire of the LORD to relent and heal his people.  "Even now," the message begins, for it is not too late because God is "gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love," if the people will repent, God will forgive and save them.  This is the heart of the Gospel.  God is indeed a holy and righteous judge, and the great day of his wrath will one day come, but he also abounds in love and mercy and desires that all men would repent and be saved.  Why speak of judgment when offering a message of hope?  Because humanity's rebellion is a deep-seated condition, and most will not repent until they realize the extent of their danger and have given up trying to save themselves.  Hope remains, all those who call upon the name of the LORD, who hope in him, will be saved.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

The logical and historical implications of a Pro-LGBTQI+ Church and/or Pro-Abortion Church

In the moment, when our passions are aroused, we have a hard time seeing it.  But there are always logical and historical implications when an organization (governmental, corporate, charitable, educational, religious, etc.) makes a momentous change.  In 1215, When King John signed the Magna Carta , the trajectory of Western Civilization was dramatically altered, although none then could have imagined that it would one day lead to English colonies across the Atlantic Ocean declaring their independence of the British Crown.  So it is with the sea change that is taking place in portions of the Church today.  What we are now experiencing is a significant change from what was generally accepted as the Truth by the Christians who passed down their faith to us.  There will be logical implications to these that we have not fully thought through, there will be unintended consequences, and there will be historical implications to this that we cannot yet see.  Perhaps, as we continue to lob verbal grenades at each other, and continue to fight this theological war as a proxy in the political realm, we ought to try to take a step back and consider what some of those implications might be.  What will we hand down to future generations in the faith?
Let us then posit the existence of a Church that by and large has become Pro-LGBTQI+ and/or Pro-Abortion.  {Not a Church that considers how to show compassion toward and minister to those who embrace LGBTQI+ behavior, nor to those who have had abortions.  Both of those things the Church should already be doing, although doing so is certainly difficult.  Nor a Church that is neutral toward these issues, neither celebrating nor condemning them.  The question at hand is this: What about a Church that has chosen to celebrate these things?}  These are the two primary ideas that the Church is being asked to accept, that some within the Church have reluctantly tolerated, and some have enthusiastically embraced.  With all of the yelling going on, perhaps looking toward the past and future will offer some perspective. 
1. Our perspective of the past will change significantly
We are always reevaluating the past, appreciating things we hadn't noticed before and regretting things that were once commonplace.  This is not new, not avoidable, and not necessarily a bad thing.  Our ancestors once considered slavery to be something they could not rid the world of, until a Christian named William Wilberforce (among many others) spent his adult life convincing England to outlaw the practice.  Now, when we consider that chattel slavery was once practiced by "fine Christian gentleman" it makes our skin crawl.  So what will we think of (for example) Moses, Paul, Augustine, Martin Luther, or Billy Graham should the Church fully embrace these two moral positions?  All of them will be viewed as much more flawed than they currently are.  And while no man or woman called by God to serve his kingdom is free of flaws, it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that these former stalwarts of the faith were either cowards (for failing to be a lone voice in their culture) or bigots (for actively opposing the behaviors in question).  In other words, nearly all of our heroes of the faith, certainly almost all those who lived before the 20th century, will have to be reevaluated, and most will end up on the list of "enemies of God".  Instead of good men and women who did their best by faith, they will be fools who were blind to the 'truth'.  It will not be a stretch to then believe that if their hearts could be so closed to what now has been determined to be true, that the vast majority of the heroes, and regular folk, who proceeded us in the faith, are in fact in Hell {for those who retain a belief in Hell}.  If one hates what God loves, and forbids what God celebrates, what other conclusion is left?  Hebrews 11 offers Christians a "great cloud of witnesses", heroes in the faith from the past to inspire us to live faithfully today.  What happens to that inspiration when the past has been rewritten and the heroes are now all villains?
In addition to the reevaluation of individuals, ancient Israel and the Church until the 21st century will also come under scrutiny for their 'unenlightened' viewpoints.  And while there were dark periods for both Israel and the Church in their history, times when people claiming to follow God have acted in shameful ways that we rightly condemn, it has until now been accepted that orthodox belief and practice did in fact triumph, by and large, in the end.  That when Israel embraced as canonical the writings of the Tanakh (what we call the Old Testament) and treated them as Holy Scripture, that they were correct to do so.  That when the Church accepted the brilliance of St. Augustine's argumentation, that it was correct to do so.  But if both Israel and the Church have been so egregiously in error, about so fundamental and issue as human sexuality or the sanctity of life, does it not follow that the entire contribution of these two would now become suspect?  That our connection to both Ancient Israel (as the tree onto which the Church was grafted) and the Early to Modern Church is false?  What they believed, will no longer be what we believe.  What they condemned, we will celebrate.  The connection to the 'faith of our fathers' will be lost.
2. God will not have been active (or effective) in the past
If, as some within the larger Church are now contending, it was always God's intention to be pro-LGBTQI+ and/or pro-abortion, if these things are not merely permissible in a civil society (where we are now) but far beyond that, to be encouraged, celebrated, and embraced as glorifying to God, then it becomes readily apparent that God's effort to share this viewpoint with his people, and have them conform to it, was woefully inadequate in the past.  There is not a plethora of writings from rabbis or church elders urging the acceptance of (let alone celebration of) these two activities, which either indicates that such voices were crushed by orthodox ones, revealing that God was powerless to promote and preserve them, or they did not in fact exist, in which case God was powerless to inspire those voices.  Either way, for the past 4,000 years, God has done a woeful job of making this aspect of morality known to his people, and thus to the world.
As a corollary, if only orthodox voices were accepted, promoted, and preserved by Israel and the Church (reflected thus in the canonical scriptures), then immediate questions arise concerning the truthfulness and value of the scriptures that we do have.  Because the Bible does not promote {Yes, I know a no-holds-barred battle is raging about whether or not the Bible condemns either homosexual behavior or abortion, this is the question beyond that one} homosexual behavior and abortion, as morally good and upright acts of righteousness (as is does, for example, repeatedly and strongly promote caring for widows and orphans, obeying your parents, or having a servant's heart), but those positions are now being declared to be such by the Church, the implication is that the Scriptures are corrupted in deep fundamental ways.  As such, trust in the scriptures as a guide to life and morality will be, in a future Church which has chosen to be pro-LGBTQI+ and/or pro-Abortion, far less absolute, thus bringing to a final end Martin Luther's call for Sola Scriptura as well as the Catholic Church's reliance upon the traditions handed down from the Apostles.
3. Jesus will not be the Jesus of our ancestors in the faith
As much as we might admire the Apostle Peter or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the end, it all comes down to Jesus.  To change our perspective regarding the hundreds of men and women who have walked in obedience before God as Jews or Christians is one thing, to take the traditional, orthodox, view of Jesus, and redefine it significantly is another.  As is the case with the Bible as a whole, the Gospels do not make any sort of pro-LGBTQI+ or pro-abortion case.  The Jesus that they relate to us, while full of compassion for the downtrodden of society, is at the same time extremely serious about the need for purity before God and the impact of sin upon the lives of people.  That these two issues were settled matters within 1st century Judaism (thus largely explaining Jesus' lack of focus upon them), would thus not excuse Jesus from speaking out in favor of those with non-traditional sexual desires, or unwanted pregnancies.  If Jesus is the champion of those in need that we all believe him to be, why did he leave the people in his midst who had these issues in the lurch?  Jesus was willing to eat with "tax collectors and 'sinners'", it would have been even more scandalous, and thus made his point about self-righteousness even more poignantly had Jesus sought out an example from either of these two groups to embrace in front of the Pharisees.
And yet Jesus didn't do this (or at least the Gospels don't record it, which instead of lowering the view of Jesus, lowers that of the Scriptures, an equally untenable solution).  He didn't take the opportunity to overturn the Jewish understanding of marriage and the sanctity of life.  Judaism in the first century viewed marriage and children as highly admirable, as the ideal for all those who could enjoy its blessings, and yet Jesus didn't call them out for their, apparent, bigotry.  The Jesus of the Gospels (the only one we know) is no hero to the LGBTQI+ movement, nor to pro-abortion champions, and thus he too will be reevaluated by a future Church that has embraced these ideas.

There are more implications for the future relating to the debates raging within the Church today than these three, but these three ought to be sufficient to give committed Christians a reason to think more deeply about these issues.  Set aside the politics, set aside the cultural implications, ask the most important question: How will this change affect the Church/Gospel/Bible if it is fully embraced?  The Church is a living thing, made up of flawed but redeemed people, and it needs to find a way to face the challenges of today without abandoning its historic and scriptural roots; to do so we need compassion, courage, and wisdom.

Paula White: Charlatan, Heretic, and White House employee - terrifying in any administration

Paula White-Cain, the famous Prosperity Gospel huckster who has made millions of dollars telling people to send her money so that they will receive God's financial blessing, is now an official White House employee.  {For further information on Paul White: Paula White:The Prosperity Gospel, Celebrity, and Politics - A trifecta of Gospel compromise}.  As this article from CNN explains, Paula White stated that when she was asked to serve, "To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God", evidence of a disturbing level of idolatry: Paula White: Trump's televangelist in the White House - by Jeremy Diamond  When asked if Paula White was a good choice to represent the evangelical community (and Christians in general), the White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere called White "someone who has the respect and admiration of the faith community across the country."  With apologies to Judd Deere, whom I do not know, that statement flies in the face of reality.  Paula White is not respected and admired by the Christian community, she is however, rich, famous, and a gate-keeper to the most powerful politician in America.  IF it becomes true that Paula White is "respected and admired" by the faith community, and there can be little doubt that her popularity is growing rapidly, it will be powerful evidence of rot and decay within the American Church, a cancer of materialism and the love of power.
1. Paula White-Cain is a charlatan and a heretic.
2. Paula White-Cain is being heavily promoted as a leader of the Church in America.
3. Whether you love, hate, or are indifferent to President Trump, the elevation by the White House of Paula White is a threat to the purity and integrity of the Church and the Gospel.
For those who support President Trump, his embrace of Paula White, while not new, he has supported her for decades, should be a disturbing sign, a further reason to pray for him.  For those who do not support the President, his embrace of Paula White will further confirm their low opinion of him.  Either way, the Church is being placed in danger, and the Gospel message is being clouded by the ongoing and increasing placement of an unashamed Prosperity Gospel huckster as a representative of American Christians.  I often hear about threats to the Church of persecution from the outside, whether or not such things are based in reality {some are, some are not}, this threat is real and it is already on the inside.
This is NOT about politics, the elevation of Paula White would be endangering the Church no matter which party she had chosen to support.  As I have warned repeatedly, the marriage of Church and politics is an uneven one, resulting in stains upon the reputation of the Bride of Christ, this is a prime example.  Do you want political power at any cost?  The bill is now due.  If the Church gains political power by embracing the Prosperity Gospel, it will have forfeited its soul.

The Culture War rages on; the Church's role in it is toxic.

Why "winning" as the goal ought to be anathema to Christians

Sermon Video: The Day of Woe - Joel 1:1-2:11

The prophet Joel wrote to his people, the descendants of Abraham who were heirs to the Covenant, during a time of extreme woe.  In Joel's day it was a massive swarm of locusts that threatened the very lives of the people and even brought an end to the daily sacrifices at the temple because no grain or wine could be procured for the morning and evening offering.  In this dark day the prophet calls upon his people to declare a fast, gather together, and "cry out to the LORD."  The misery they faced reminds us that we too may undergo a severe trial, whether it be a natural disaster or a manifestation of the wrath of God, and our response should be the same: gather together, and cry out to the LORD.

To watch the video, click on the link below: