Practical Application: Lecrae's "Rebel Intro"

Many songs are very rich with practical truth that needs to be applied, not just heard. It's easy to hear a song with deep truth and go fast over it from one song to the next. Maybe the song will get stuck in our heads, but sometimes it stays there because it is catchy.

So, because Scripture commands us in James to be a doer of the word and not only a hearer of it, I would like to dive in on a song that has affected me multiple times since I first heard it: Lecrae's "Rebel Intro". As Voice said in "Whatever It Takes", "So now let's make this thing practical, since I am convinced this is God's Word and factual / but not merely a list of facts and features; they are truths that inform for all [of] what belief is." He said this of Scripture, so I will not say that the words of a song are divinely inspired. However, the songs can show us how we can apply truth that is divinely inspired.

Whether teaching us in preaching, singing, rapping, writing, or ministering where life exists, teachers who teach falsely will come under greater condemnation than those who follow them. Similarly, those of us who have heard more truth and refused to live it out have committed more disobedience against God than those who have heard less of the truth. So let's dive in and apply this.

"I'm in rebellion"

What kind of rebellion? The rest will explain.

"Jesus was a rebel, a renegade, outlaw

A sanctified troublemaker but He never sinned, naw"

Jesus was a rebel because He never sinned. Most people define "rebel" by whether we rebel against cultural norms. Criminals are "rebels" because most people believe practically that people are basically good and criminals somehow act against their basically good nature when they break the laws of the land. More conservative people think that people with multicolored hair or a lot of tattoos are "rebels" because they rebel against society's definition of a clean appearance. But Romans 3:10 says that all have sinned and rebelled against God. Christ, as God in human flesh, was by definition a rebel against the society around Him on earth.

"and He lived His life by a different set of Rules

the culture ain't approve so you know they had to bruise Him "

Secular society's rules today tend to base themselves around either 1) living for yourself, or 2) living for others but leaving God out of it. The former are all about pursuing their own happiness by having as much money, power, toys, work, leisure, sex, and other treasures of this world as they can. The latter tend to gravitate toward causes of goodwill but emphasize service to their fellow man more than God. That is living for the glory of others, not the glory of God.

Let me spin it another way for Christians: Many church people (not all are Christians) do not have a Biblical understanding of their new relationship to law. One group is antinomians: "We are under grace now. Throw the law out. Let's do what we want." Another group is legalists, who make their own set of rules, usually starting off with Scripture but leading into absurd applications that don't really fit and forcing them on others. This has a strong moralistic component and often produces outward obedience without a change in heart.

Jesus' set of rules was different because the culture around Him focused on obeying the Mosaic law. Among religious people, obedience to that law was the norm. But Jesus revealed that the hearts of the culture around Him were sinful toward God; what they were doing to get close to God was not good enough, because they still had sin. Perhaps He showed this most notably in the Sermon on the Mount, in several concrete applications of "Love your neighbor as yourself", an old law from Deuteronomy that may have seemed vague. Hating someone was on the same level as killing them; who would have thought? And culture tended not to follow Him; most settled back into "This is how we have always defined and done righteousness", while missing the entire picture.

"that's the way they do man, they swear they so gangsta

everyone the same, everybody do the same stuff

tattoos, piercings, smokin' up and drinking, money and sex plus them extravagant weekends"

Rebellion against God is the norm in society. It is only expressed in different ways and to different extents. I'm not trying to say that getting a tattoo or getting a piercing is right or wrong; that is not my focus in writing this. But most of society rebels against God in ways that are culturally acceptable. They live for the weekends when they can get drunk and enjoy the fruits of their hard work. Or they spend themselves at work in order to become thought of as great in their field or just to have more money. Or they are too lazy to contribute anything to society. These are all different ways to rebel against God.

"man if that's the high life I'll puff puff pass that

you live evaporated like missing a gas cap

I guess I'm passed that; I am in rebellion"

A Christian should rebel against the world's standards of how to live life and live by God's. But do so humbly. "I'm in rebellion" does not mean "Look at how holy I am." It means "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. And the life which I lived in the flesh..." - even if that life meant looking to your own self-righteousness and using that to please God instead of repenting of that and having faith in the finished work of Christ to please God - "I live by faith in the Son of God" - and His present and future grace! - "Who loved me and gave Himself for me." Obey Christ and love Him because He is all you will ever have and all you will ever need.

"I'd rather have a dollar in my pocket than a million

I'm scared to worship money, and my wants over Elyon"

This line strikes me the most of any in this song right now. I'm a young professional with minimal bills and almost 5 years of working full-time. Even though I give more than ten percent of my income to my church and I also give to missions and charity, that giving is not sacrificial. It is out of abundance. I can't imagine being someone who lives for the kingdom of God as a full-time missionary and has to really trust God for their provisions. I like being able to go to the ATM, take more money out than I may need, and see that balance keep going up. Can it be said that I love money?

"I'll remain a rebel while the rest of them just carry on

this is what I live for, this the hill I'm buried on"

The rest are carrying on because they are opposed to the gospel message lived out in you. What you live for is not your own personal holiness, but for Christ Himself.

"if Jesus is the truth that means one of us is VERY wrong

think about it"

And it's not about winning an argument; it's about an absolute standard that God has established and expected us to live by, knowing full well that we can't do it. We will transgress His law. We do need a Savior several times over. We are children of the first Adam, who sinned. We inherited that Adam's sin nature. And we continue to sin each day. Does the depth of "VERY wrong" break you? "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin my mother conceived me." It did for King David. One of us is very wrong because one of us continues to follow the ways of the world. But the Christian was once an unbeliever and just as wrong.

"I know that in our day rebel means sinner.

But everyone is sinning, so it is no longer rebellious to sin!

Jesus was a rebel who was counter-cultural."

"No glory in me

all glory to the King on the throne (Jesus)"

Don't rebel to bring glory to yourself. The world won't give you glory. You might give yourself selfish pride if you rebel for this reason. But God's glory far outshines ten billion kings'. He will not allow any part of His glory to be stolen by His creation.

"you either love Him or leave Him alone, but you can't do both"

Being a true disciple of Christ does not leave room for indecisively waffling at the door. You can't be indifferent toward Christ as you may be able to be about a job or a country. You cannot serve two masters, and if you both love Him and leave Him alone - or to put it differently, accept part of Him and reject part of His character and commands - you are doing that and creating God in your own image, when you are really created in His image to give Him glory. Eventually, you will love Christ and hate the ways of this world, or you will love the ways of this world and hate Christ.

"yeah, I know you heard that once in song

I pray you hear 10 more fo ya gone

hey listen up, homes"

Every time you hear truth and don't obey it, your heart will grow harder. But many people have to hear the truth many times before it will change them. God must work at the pace that He wills, to bring Him the most glory. But how many times have I heard the commands of Christ and refused to obey them, thinking they were too radical for me? How many times have I been told to share the gospel with others or even given a specific person to whom I must share the gospel, and I wouldn't do it? How wicked am I?

"Stage is the corner and my crowd is the streets

And I rap the bread of life cause they dyin' to eat"

"The streets" - they are not in the church yet. Most of them don't want to go near it. A Christian has non-Christians in his audience who watch him perform each facet of his life either for the glory of God or for the glory of himself. The world is watching. And they're dying to eat, but they will only eat the bread of life if God gives them a taste for it. They are more inclined to eat what will not satisfy because that is what they want, in their sinful nature. But the sower sowed the seed on all ground, not only the ground that looked fertile; God saw to it that those who would be saved by that message were saved.

"I'm a rebel, you know the kind that die in the street

Cause you refuse to conform, won't eat the kings meat"

Expect opposition from this world system today. Refusing to eat meat that has been sacrificed to an idol is not one of our issues today. But our cultures today have equivalents. And our rebellion against this world system can carry a high cost. Jesus was willing to die in His.

"Christ rebelled by shunning the culture

He eatin' with sinners, giving Pharisees ulcers

He never got married, he was broke, plus homeless

yeah that's the God I roll with"

Jesus Christ was willing to eat with unbelievers. That was significant because Pharisees only associated with their own and looked down on everyone else. When was the last time I sat down with an unbeliever and really talked with them, willingly? For me, evangelism is easier if I am in an unfamiliar place and I have met the person that I am witnessing to for the first time. But when co-workers who are not Christians talk to me, I tend to see it either as a bother from the task at hand or as a necessary break. In doing life, I tend to gravitate toward other believers to the extent that it may make me a Pharisee.

"ya boy gotta wife and no I never cheated"

Never cheating on your wife is by the grace of God. If you are a man with status, other women will want you. If you travel a lot (and rappers do), your wife could never find out if you broke your covenant with her. So this statement has to do with rebellion, but it is not just for status. Nearly every man goes through this form of temptation. It is only by God's grace that we stay faithful.

"I'm prayin for humility whenever I get heated"

Among other times, you can get mad or frustrated when you see the world living in a way contrary to Scripture or yourself not living to a high enough standard. In the former case, the temptation is to exalt yourself for beating the world's game. But that keeps you from standing for the truth with a tear in your eye and pointing the world to Christ.

"forget about the drugs; rebel against pornography"

Don't use sin, such as drugs, as a means of rebellion. Rebel against sin itself, such as looking at pornography, by refusing to engage in it and refusing to support or defend it. Christians should rescue those who are trapped in sins like that. But use wisdom, so that you will not fall. By the grace of God, I don't look at porn. But I have met many Christian men who do. And I don't want to fall, so I know there are some places I cannot go. Draw the line that you will not cross as far from the cliff as you can, and do it while in a wise frame of mind so that you will not have to try to do it in the heat of passion.

"this ain't how it oughta be, homie it' how it's gotta be

A rebel!"

The truth is not just a suggestion or one man's good idea. It is an absolute, worth striving hard for. Here, we have no lasting city. We seek a city that is to come. But that shouldn't stop us from seeking to bring others to that lasting city and using this life to long for that lasting city rather than our temporary monuments to human "greatness" that are passing away.

"You are just a conformist, if you are drunk and naked, driving around on a loud motorcycle, smoking cigarettes and breaking commandments, getting pregnant out of wedlock. Everyone has done that, it's so tired! If you really want to be a rebel, read your Bible, because no one is doing that! That's rebellion. That's the only rebellion left!"

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There is nothing better to do with your life today than to give Him glory. Have a passion for His glory and for your joy in that glory; "those two are one passion"!

"How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose . . ! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves. . . . O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation."

- Augustine, Confessions.

"I have seen, when I was a boy, a juggler in the street throw up half-a-dozen balls, or knives and plates, and continue catching and throwing them, and to me it seemed marvellous; but the religious juggler beats all others hollow. He has to keep up Christianity and worldliness at the same time, and catch two sets of balls at once. To be a freeman of Christ and a slave of the world, at the same time, must need fine acting. One of these days you, Sir Juggler, will make a slip with one of the balls, and your game will be over."

- C.H. Spurgeon.

This Entertaining Truth, Part 5: Having Great Theology Does Not Equal Repentance And Belief.

I mentioned in a recent post that I visited a Biblical megachurch for their Easter Sunday service this year. The church had a baptism for three people that morning. In at least one of the testimonies, I saw a theme that seems common in youth who grow up in Biblical churches: Kid grows up attending Biblical church with parents. Kid gets old enough to make their own decisions, falls into a sinful lifestyle, leaves the church, gets into all sorts of trouble. At some point, kid hits rock bottom and God saves them, and kid returns to the church they grew up in - but this time, as a true believer.

Reformed churches tend to stress catechizing children - doing this, not with the guarantee of "this will save them", but in hopes that through diligent plowing, the truth will take root in their hearts and they will be genuinely saved. This is a great thing. But it often backfires as God shows us that we are not saved by our own effort or the effort of our parents - "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13, ESV). Parents can be raising the "perfect" children, discipling them well at home, having them sit under the preaching of a modern-day Spurgeon Sunday after Sunday, training them like Pavlov's dog to come up with the right answers to every theological question whenever you ask, and have them not really know Jesus Christ. And as they sit under true Biblical preaching week after week, they will search for more and more loopholes around that truth. And if they are listening to a preacher who knows how to close all of those loopholes, they will learn to appease their parents by continuing to hear it while, all the while, deeply hating that truth in their hearts and seeking every possible way to rebel against it.

I grew up as one of those kids who would fire off a whole chapter of Awana sections every week. As a wee lad, I was good at word-for-word memorization. I would finish my books with half a school year left to spare, then complete Scripture memory packets and, at least once, started memorizing a whole book of the Bible. I was the Awana leaders' dream, but I couldn't say much about what the verses actually meant. I wasn't much of a Christian - if I was even one at all at the time. "Repent" was just a word that sounded cool and spiritual. "Application" in sermons that I heard was a foreign language to me. In the background, I wanted to be in another world, whether an imaginary world or a real world where Game Time never ended. And in high school I just wanted my music and my movies. My desire wasn't for God; it was for fun. I didn't want to be part of any small groups where people would actually hold me accountable for growing in sanctification; I just wanted to hang out with my friends and do the minimum to appease their desires to see me bear fruit. And in college, when I started to listen to internet radio, fun meant listening to mostly disgusting comedy routines for hours on end with the excuse that a good clean routine would come on once in a while. Through headphones, you can deceive a lot of people. "What are you laughing at?" "Oh, nothing." Christ had to die for that "nothing" - and for the lie that it was "nothing". You can live casually until you see sin's gravity. But a blind eye can't even begin to see the infinite severity of even one sin against an infinitely holy God.

There is a huge danger in wanting to bear only a minimum amount of fruit for the Lord. It is quite possible that, in effect, in this desire, someone is really saying, "I'm really bearing thistles, but let me spray-paint them to look as much like figs as I can, in my fleshly power, so that, from a distance, more spiritual people will glance at me and say, 'That guy is doing his job for the Kingdom', and they will want me to be their friend. But, oh, how I fear the scrutiny of those who want to look closely at my heart. They will realize, 'He's saying the right words, but his heart is far from Christ. If he were to leave this world right now, God would look on him as his Judge and sentence him to an eternity of eternities in hell, while this hero of deception has everyone, most of all himself, believing that he would be in heaven.' I must do everything I can to keep people from judging me like that." And all the while, they say loudly to others, "I am a five-point Calvinist." They carry a big Bible in a word-for-word translation. They know how to evaluate preachers: "He is a talented exegete and sesquipedalian, but I do not listen to him because we differ on infra- versus supralapsarianism. I would much rather listen to sermons by [fill in the blank]." They sing worship songs only to affirm, "That's... correct. That's... correct. Hey, that ain't right!" But where is the genuine fruit, the genuine rejection of your own sin (not only other people's), and the genuine affections for the Lord?

You can believe in your head without believing in your heart. The more advanced an unconverted person becomes in theology, the more they might become able to trust their own knowledge and say, "Look at me. I read Edwards. I'm definitely in." But that is not trusting in the finished work of Christ and realizing deeply that He had to die even for the pride of propping up your own religious accomplishments. God alone is capable of doing that in the heart of an unconverted person, who by nature hates Him. The Israelites did not have to speak of their own qualifications to look at the bronze serpent on a pole. They only, in their desperate condition, had to fix their eyes on that frightening creature that looks like the same thing that killed their families and friends, and they would be saved from death. And today, you cannot save yourself from spiritual death by knowing which theologians to quote when. Godmust open your eyes and turn your head to look on Christ in His frightening perfections, frightening because Christ is everything you are not and the Lord is thoroughly offended by even the good things you do in your own flesh. But the Father sent His Son, who laid aside His glory to die a gruesome death for your sins on this earth. The unconverted crowd looked upon Him with ridicule, as if to say, "He is not our King! We were expecting dashing good looks and the end of Roman rule, and instead we got this donkey-riding man from Nazareth. Whatever good ever came from there?" But the poor in spirit know: "In this Savior, who died for me, there really is a certain salvation, 'certain' in the surest sense of that word. And, as Spurgeon said, 'How can I [even] trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend?'" Forget yourself; look on Christ and live. Seek Him while He may be found. Turn away from your sins, to Christ, and believe in this gospel.

I do not write this with anyone in particular in mind. If I saw someone in my life acting like this, I would go to them privately and tell them rather than blogging about it. But maybe God will use this to wake someone up. The Lion is not tame, and His truth is not a toy.

This Entertaining Truth, Part 4: The Sufficiency of "Christian".

There is something else I wanted to discuss now: the sufficiency of "Christian". I could identify myself as a "Reformed Baptist" or "Christian Hedonist" or an "I'm of John Piper". The guys at TeamPyro describe themselves as "Calvidispiebaptogelical". And of what use is that in describing what saves me? It's a cute label and something that people in my school of thought would chuckle at and possibly unite under. There are two problems with that.

First, it is not good for the unity of the church. If a Christian labels themselves as anything other than Christian, it can divide them from other legitimate believers. I am not talking about "Christians" that prayed a prayer and went back to sinning so that grace would abound. I mean others that have turned from their sins, believed in Christ alone for salvation, and have been given a persevering faith in Christ that stands up to trials so that God will find them faithful when they stand before Him at the end of their lives.

Second, you are not saved by a theological framework! Jesus did not die on the cross and say, "The limited atonement is finished! I didn't die for you, Caesar! Haha... gotcha!!" Everyone who is saved, regardless of their background, becomes a Christian when they repent of their sins and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15). Those are the only essentials, though they carry a much higher cost than most people think.

Strangely enough, most of my close friends are Christians who do not agree with me theologically. Some of them are from my old church, a church that calls itself Baptist but does not preach a gospel of repentance. Yet some people there (including the aforementioned friends) have truly repented from their sins and believed in Christ and remained in that church, more or less, as missionaries to it - teaching what they know is right even though the pastors don't always agree with them. And one of my best friends is a member of a Pentecostal church. He does not personally subscribe to the health-and-wealth gospel, but he goes to that church because that is what he has always done.

See, in most contexts, enjoying fellowship with another believer until I find a disagreement with them, then spending all subsequent time disagreeing with them until we both just say "hmph!" and part ways does not help. It is important to fellowship with those who are like-minded. But if someone really is a believer and is not like-minded, and it really is that important to win them over to my side, I need to win them over with love. And if "love doesn't work", I need to repent of my pragmatism and continue giving them the truth in love anyway.

Here is another thought just in case I have made it seem that theology is not important. Many of the differences across Christian theologies boil down to one question: Does God exist to make me look great, or do I exist to make God look great? Phrased another way, who is at the center - man or Christ? Our answers do a lot to shape our views of Him and of the world around us.

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Tim Conway from Grace Community Church and I'll Be Honest said the following in one of his Q&A sessions. My apologies for not remembering which one:

"There are Calvinists in hell. ... Whatever Bible you have, it ought to be teaching you how to love other Christians more. Whatever doctrine you have - whatever theology you have - it ought to be revealing Christ to you more and more, that you will want to love Him more and more."

"If your doctrine makes it harder for you to get along with - if it makes you more difficult - if it makes you unbearable - if it makes you ungracious - if it makes you unloving, then ... you're making an idol out of that. And I'll say the same thing about Bible translations, about denominations. If your denomination, or being a Baptist, or clinging to a certain Bible translation makes you ugly towards other people, makes you bitter towards other people, you've made an idol out of it."

"Many times, discipline is right in the area of the sin. You know what sin a lot of times He comes after us for? Idolatry. A lot of times, we tend to treasure something in our lives more than Christ. ... He will come to us right at that idol. ... If you are in sin and you can just keep on going at it, beware."

This Entertaining Truth, Part 3: A Soundtrack for Life

In my music collection, I have at least 38 days' worth of songs, sermons, and podcast episodes, accrued through about 13 years of buying music and 4 years of listening to sermons. I definitely appreciate good music and preaching. Most of my days at work are spent, at least partially, listening to various songs in order to block out noise in the office and help me to focus on my tasks. And then I usually listen to music on the way home and sometimes after I get home as well.

As Joshua Harris said well in Dug Down Deep, everyone is a theologian; but is what you believe about God true?

Now I will expand this to musicians and entertainers in general. Every song that contains lyrics expresses theology, whether it says, "How great is our God" or "Shake that [rear end], girl". I say that of the latter example because it still expresses a worldview that says, "The chief end of a man is to pursue pleasure for himself, and women exist to provide him with that pleasure." This is the obviously wrong example to most Christians, although the fact that such songs still express some form of theology is far less obvious. One can find another less obvious example in songs which teach, "God exists to give me what I want."

Christians can respond to this in several ways. One is to still listen to the world but try not to let it affect our worldview. That often sets us up for additional temptation. Others will listen to anything that calls itself Christian without examining its doctrine. And others will only listen to songs that are doctrinally sound.

Customized theology can creep in here as well. Few, if any, people use lyrics alone as the determining factor in what they will willfully listen to. The song must sound good too, right? We obtain some sort of pleasure from listening to music, and it also serves as a means to worship corporately. Otherwise, we would just listen to preaching all the time.

So we can have two filters: one, lyrical; the other, musical. And then our playlists become routine. I don't know anyone who sets up playlists on their music player of choice based on the theology that the songs teach. Most people use a genre, an artist, or just favorite songs. So then the favorite songs become stuck in our heads and we start meditating on the words. And we can get a skewed theology this way. I suspect this is one way how some people listen to songs that say "all things are possible" all day and then start praying outside the will of God.

There exist other dangers in considering music as a soundtrack for life. How many times have I been inclined to pray and decided to listen to my umpteenth holy hip hop song of the day instead? It is trading "best" - communion with the Father - for merely "good" - learning great doctrine. We can listen to doctrinally sound worship music or holy hip hop or read wonderful books or listen to deep expositional preaching all day and still not abide in Christ. Often I need to check myself: would I really rather listen to a full playlist of music than just read Scripture? Would I really rather listen to another sermon than just pray? In doing this, I exalt my teachers instead of my Lord.

And I have found it also sometimes becomes hard for me to sing a simple worship song after a week of listening to lots of doctrinally deep Christian music. If I go into a worship service expecting to sing a certain deep worship song with the rest of the congregation, and I'm disappointed when we sing something simpler instead, the service starts to become about me instead of about God. Even in giving myself to God-centered Christianity, I can still center my Christianity on myself.

Some of my friends have been able to go on a media fast for a week or 40 days. Honestly, I don't think I could do it right now. When I fast from food, I have not been able to also fast from Facebook or checking my email - or sometimes even checking my Blogger stats! When Jesus communed with His Father, He withdrew - away from the disciples, away from ministry and fellowship. Ah, as C.S. Lewis says, "we are far too easily pleased" - with our electronic toys.

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"The best thing some of you can do is take every television set in your house and destroy it - and learn to read, and think, and talk."

- Paul Washer, "The Sovereignty of God and World Missions".

This Entertaining Truth, Part 2: Sola "Scriptura + My Opinions"?

"In a separate report, Barna found that more than 6 in 10 born-again Christians say they are customizing their faith, not following any one church's theology. 'Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible,' the report notes."

- "Christian faith: Calvinism is Back".

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In the last few years, I have picked up on a tendency of American Christians (including myself, to some extent) going into a church service with everything they believe already made up and then filtering everything they hear through that lens instead of through Scripture. There's this notion of "Joel Osteen is saying this; Paul Washer is saying that; they are both Christians, so they must both somehow be telling the truth... so I'll believe both of them." A lot of them don't read their Bibles enough to know the difference, and a lot of them do not "search the Scriptures to see if these things are so" like the Bereans did. And a lot of them don't examine themselves well enough to see whether they or their teachers are genuinely converted. (Note: God is the final arbiter of that, as the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked - Jeremiah 17:9. But: "you shall know them by their fruit" - Matthew 7:16.)

And then as they hear all these teachers saying all these different things, they cancel each other out. So when they do hear something about how their lifestyle habitually does not fall in line with Scripture and that if they don't repent, that is evidence that they may have never been saved, they dismiss it as, "Oh, that's just what John Piper thinks. That's nice. I'll just let him believe what he believes." Just as bad: "Oooo, that's convicting! But I don't need to do anything about it." It becomes like a college lecture on something that has nothing to do with your job: just interesting, just entertainment, just more useless knowledge in a brain that is most likely already full of worldly useless knowledge.

The problem is, God, not you, determines absolute truth. He alone sets the standards that determine whether you are really saved and whether you are growing in holiness. A lot of people mask their opinions with "God told me..." to get away with anything. But the Bible alone holds final authority regarding doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

So I ask: where does your "customized faith" come from? Does it come from legitimate Biblical convictions obtained by reading and praying through Scripture? Or is it just what you want to believe?

It would be nigh upon impossible for me to pick a church that agrees with me 100% on every major and minor issue. I identify, in rapidly descending order of importance, as a Christian, a five-point Calvinist, a Baptist, and a qualified continuationist (in the vein of John Piper and Wayne Grudem). And I don't worship like a dead man. All of this, I arrived at through studying Scripture and listening to faithful preachers from Baptist, Presbyterian, nondenominational, Sovereign Grace, Acts 29, (etc.) churches.

Maybe you are from a Sovereign Grace church, read the preceding paragraph, and said, "I don't see what this guy's problem is. He should just join one of our churches. We agree with him on practically everything." The problem is the will of God.

After spending time in prayer about it and becoming convinced that God would be most glorified in my life right now if I do this, I became a member of a Reformed Baptist church in my area. (This is also the "international church" to which I referred in Godly Fellowship, Part 8.) We don't actually have "Reformed" or "Baptist" in our name. We have gone through three names and two pastors during the two-plus years that I have been there. The majority of the members who were there two years ago have left the church and been replaced by new people whom I do not know as well. And in my age group, our church is so full of young men that we all basically have to look outside our local church for prospective wives - and then make sure that they too agree with us on matters of the faith and can serve in our church - not an easy task. (In our young adult ministry recently, we had five men's small groups and only one for women.) There is really very little in it for me except that I know I am being fed with the Word here and worshiping God truthfully with other genuinely converted people here. And those two things outweigh everything else.

I do not want to make minor issues major, if I can help it in the least. To have fellowship with me as a Christian, someone must agree with me on one thing: the gospel. That is the most important thing in all of Christianity, and everything else in our faith is insignificant to this one thing: Christ died for sinners. And if someone repents of their sins (not just confessing them) and believes in Christ alone, God has given them that repentance and faith and saved them. Nothing else really matters compared to this gospel.

At this stage in life, loving the church means the following for me: "To the wind with 10- or 20-year Christian friendships that were not founded in Christ. Possibly, to the wind with getting married or even finding love, at least for now. I do not wear a cross around my neck. I carry it on my shoulder. And this is no sacrifice to me, because God killing His Son at Calvary was an unthinkable sacrifice, and He did it anyway to glorify His name by saving my soul from His eternal wrath. These are my brothers and sisters. They are with Christ. So I am with them."

When we approach doctrine or the church with apathy or we emphasize our customized theology above everything else, we ought to consider the following:

"You wonder why people choose fields away from the States when young people at home are drifting because no one wants to take time to listen to their problems. I’ll tell you why I left. Because those Stateside young people have every opportunity to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language, and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever. I have had to make a cross of two logs, and lie down on it, to show the Indians what it means to crucify a man. When there is that much ignorance over here and so much knowledge and opportunity over there, I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Those whimpering Stateside young people will wake up on the Day of Judgment condemned to worst fates than these demon-fearing Indians, because having a Bible, they were bored with it – while these never heard of such a thing as writing."

- Jim Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty, p. 237, quoted on Pure Church.

This Entertaining Truth, Part 1: I'll Have My Spiritual Steak Medium-Well, Please.

As a Christian who listens to and reads from some of the most truthful Bible preachers and teachers available today - such as Paul Washer, John Piper, Voddie Baucham, Eric Mason, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, and the list goes on - sometimes I tend to sit back, taking more security than I should in the fact that much of my spiritual food comes from these teachers. Thoughts of, "This guy can really bring truth", start going through my head.

But, as Pastor Begg calls his radio show, it is "Truth for Life".

In high school or college, I memorized all of James 1. I probably cannot recite it word for word anymore, but verses 22-25 stay with me to this day:

" ²²Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, andcontinues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it— he will be blessed in what he does."

Listening to the truth of God can, quite wrongfully, become a form of entertainment. Perhaps that is is part of my motivation for why I tend to prefer to listen to very theoretical preaching that emphasizes the otherness of God, His holiness, His justice, His grace, and His other attributes. Often I think, "We have a song in church where we sing, 'I will worship You for who You are'; and it doesn't say much more than that. It doesn't actually tell us who God is or explain His characteristics. So how can I 'worship God for who He is' unless I study Him and find out who He is?" So it leads me into high-flown thought after high-flown thought, which leads to great worship if I am given a doctrinally sound enough song to sing. This can be a good thing. Or it can turn me into a theological elitist or someone who is merely entertained by good preaching.

Ok; that's a good thought. But why do Christians like me shy away from practical messages? Is it merely because we don't hear much more than that in most modern churches and we are looking for the real meat?

Or is it because we find the meat entertaining and because only listening to the meat can sometimes get us thinking about God's nature so much that it lets us off the hook of practical obedience?

Don't misunderstand me. We do need to listen to the meat and not live on only the milk of the Word forever. We need to listen to, and/or read, the preachers and writers who can really chop up a text of Scripture and mine it like gold. Listening to John Piper or Eric Mason preach for an hour or so on just one verse, like John 1:1, or even just "In the beginning was the Word...", gives great depth to our knowledge of God; it can greatly help our spiritual growth and enhance our worship of God. And we need to study Scripture to get as much out of it as we can and then live it out and share it in times of fellowship with each other. We need all of that.

But sometimes I get to a point where I start to say things like, "Whoa, that's convicting!" And then at the end of the message, I listen to some music or Tagalog lessons and forget what I have heard.

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"11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don't hinder.

"12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by."

- from the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.