Every person has their own little ways of rationalizing disobedience to God; part of the process of sanctification is learning to see where you’re disobedient, recognize your own little work-arounds, and repent of them. The same is true for communities. I’m going to speak to some of the foibles of the North American suburban church and its denizens, because that’s the community I happen to have grown up in, but you can take these same principles and apply them wherever you are.
I grew up in Northern Virginia, in an unincorporated “town” mostly populated by commuters who worked in and around Washington, D.C. Mostly these were people who had kids and wanted them to succeed, which (by the metrics of the area) meant doing something that changed the world, made a lot of money, or (preferably) both. Our church was also about changing the world, mostly through Christian education, foreign missions, and a thriving ministry to the international community in our area. And you know what? We did a lot of good work. Faith Bible Church cast a very, very long shadow. I’m grateful and proud to be from there, and I still know a number of people today whose long and fruitful ministries were launched in that church.
I left Northern Virginia behind in December of 1998. Quit my job, packed my car, drove 9 hours to Knoxville for a family Christmas with my grandma…and then headed cross-country. In California, there was a seminary I planned to attend, and a girl I planned to marry. I really had no intention of returning to Northern Virginia; nothing much there for me. But it proved easier to get me out of Northern Virginia than it was to get Northern Virginia out of me.
But in the end, every legacy is mixed. As the Rabbi said, only God is good. For me, one of the unfortunate parts of that Northern Virginia legacy was the inveterate on-the-make-ness, the need to be important, the constant preoccupation with activity at the expense of slowing down enough to actually know people. I was partway through my seminary training when I noticed what Hebrews 3:12-13 actually says: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Did you catch that? The prescription for avoiding an evil heart of unbelief is encouraging one another daily. Daily.
We love to rationalize this away. We’re so busy. Work has been nuts. Jack has soccer, and Kaitlyn has all the extra practices for that ballet recital coming up. And so on….but it says what it says. Now for me when I first really noticed this passage, I was single, living alone, in grad school full time and working full time. I went to church every Sunday and I had a Christian girlfriend (who would one day become my wife), but I could go a few days without seeing a fellow believer, and far longer than that without exchanging encouragement with a fellow believer. My initial inclination was to rationalize the command away: “I’m so busy; I see believers often enough; I’m sure it’s fine.”
Then I thought: If I just look at this in black and white, I’m telling myself it’s fine to disobey the Bible. If that’s not being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, what would be? I didn’t have a good answer to that. So I started to explore: What if I didn’t excuse myself from obedience? Rationalization gave way to logistics. I quickly realized that given my own schedule and the schedules of my Christian friends, this might really be impossible some days. But what would happen if I tried? I’ve been trying ever since, and getting better at it as I go. Having more control over my own schedule has been really big, for this.
Does it go perfectly? No, it does not. Some days, as far as I can tell, it’s just not possible. Even in the age of cell phones and video chat, sometimes nobody’s got time, even if I have a few minutes. Some days, despite my best efforts, I’m the one that somehow doesn’t have a few minutes. But honestly, that’s rare.
I don’t make myself nuts about it. Here’s how I figure it: if in God’s providence, there’s really no way to exchange encouragement with another believer on a given day, then that’s on Him; I tried, and nobody was available. But if the reason I don’t get (and give!) encouragement is because I’m not trying, then that’s on me. And you know what I discovered? When I stopped arguing with myself about whether it’s possible and start thinking about how to make it happen, a lot more happened than you’d think. I see a lot more of my fellow believers than I ever did before I started trying to exchange daily encouragement.
Of course, that also comes at a substantial cost. I have worked to have a good bit of control over my schedule, I still only have the same 168 hours everybody else gets in a week. A few minutes chatting in the parking lot here, a quick call there, a text that turns into a daylong exchange…it adds up, even before you consider the “five minute” conversation that’s still going two hours later, or the quick phone call to a single friend who’s sick, which turns into a grocery run and cooking him chicken soup at his place because he hasn’t eaten in a couple days. My life is in every way richer and more meaningful for it, but all this takes time; it doesn’t happen for free.
…and that’s the thing I really want to talk about here. Take the Hebrews 3 command as an example, illustrating a journey. The starting point is the blind assumption that the ‘normal’ I was raised with, my default setting for life—whatever that is—is fine. From there…
- The journey begins with the suspicion that the Bible says something quite different from what I think is normal. The suspicion prompts study, and the study, in due time, yields certainty: God expects something different from me.
- The struggle between rationalization and obedience begins. Is it really that important? Am I quite sure the Bible really says this? (Does “Yea, hath God indeed said…?” sound familiar at all?) People underrate this step; it is often much harder than it sounds. Navigate it successfully, and you come out wanting—or at least willing—to do what God said.
- The desire for obedience is not the end of the road, however. There’s still the logistics of actually doing it. Obedience is frequently difficult and costly. Just figuring out how can be quite a process of trial and error, and then there’s the costs of actually doing it.
In other words, this is a process. Every step along the journey is commendable; no one should hold any part of the journey toward obedience in contempt. But actual obedience is what happens in step 3.
The thing I want to talk about is getting stuck at the end of step 2. For so many people who come from a pretty conventional background, the first two steps were quite a journey already. Just seeing past the smokescreen of their assumed ‘normal’ and coming to the place where they want what they ought to want was a lot of work. For example…
- Seeing past the grocery store errand to notice the homeless family sitting on the sidewalk outside the store.
- Seeing past endless rounds of suburban soccer to the possibility of giving your kids a meaningful relationship with the church.
- Seeing past our insularity and beginning to want genuine friendships.
- Seeing past quoting Hebrews 10:25 about the Sunday morning production, and beginning to look for places where Hebrews 10:24-25 actually happens.
- And yes, seeing past all our addictive busyness to the need for daily mutual encouragement.
Once you’ve gotten around that corner, once you’ve made it to the end of step 2, you want what you ought to want. You can’t un-see it now. You talk about how blind you used to be, how the American church gets it so wrong, how God showed you the error of your ways, That’s all to the good, as far as it goes…
…but then you gotta do it. We’ve been so culturally conditioned to think we can have it all, we really struggle with the realization that Christian obedience may cost us something important. That’s ok. You’re allowed to have that stomach-drop moment where you realize what obedience is going to cost you. For most of us, sticker-shock is part of the process, at least sometimes. Just don’t let it stop you. But my real concern here is not with the people who see the cost of real obedience and just won’t take the plunge. That’s a real problem, but a fairly straightforward one: tighten your belt and jump!
The problem I want to tackle today is getting stuck thinking that insight alone is enough. Getting all the way to the end of step 2 is hard. That can be a really long journey, and it’s incredibly easy to let yourself slip into the delusion that you’ve now arrived. You’ve crested the mountain; just the act of really wanting it, talking a good game with your friends, will somehow bring it about. You have good intentions; you want the right things, and that was a hard spot to get to. But you’ve tricked yourself into thinking that those things will now come to you simply because you now see how important they are.
- This is the pastor who believes in plurality of elders on paper, has plural elders in his church…but under stress reverts to dictatorial behavior and expects them to back him 100%.
- This is the minister who believes that a person with the appropriate gifting should lead a particular ministry…but insists on making himself the leader for every ministry of the church in practice.
- This is the young husband who talks about how important it is for everyone in the family to be accountable…but isolates his family from the church so that in practice, his family is accountable to him, and he’s accountable to nobody.
- This is the guy who talks about noticing the last, the lost, and the least…but sees the bulging sidewall in a single mom’s tire, and doesn’t do anything because she gets child support, so it’s not his responsibility.
- This is the man who talks about how confrontation makes us all better…but makes life hell for anybody who confronts him.
- This is the lady who talks about the Christian duty of close community…but has to have it when it’s convenient for her, on her schedule, entirely on her terms.
I could multiply examples, but hopefully you get the idea. All of these people, when they don’t achieve the result they say they want, are going to see other people as the problem, somehow. Because they see the need for the thing, because they really want it—and listen, they sincerely do—they think they’re doing their part. It must just be that other people don’t want it as much as they do.
But no. They haven’t reckoned with the ways in which their own decisions—and the conflicting desires that drive them—are tripping them up. But the challenge today isn’t to join these folks in occupying yourself with how dumb other people are. The challenge here is to ask, “Where am I guilty of this?” Where do I want the right things but refuse to pay the costs? Are there people I’m short-changing because I insist that they make sacrifices for me that I wouldn’t make for them? Are there places where my intentions are good, but I’m letting myself believe that insight alone will change my life?
Don’t look at your intentions. Look at your results. Look at your effect on the people around you. May God give us all eyes to see.
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