Pastor Sid's Journal

Not Just Morality

On Sunday I made the comment that the core of Christianity is not about morality but about redemption. This is not to suggest that we shouldn't value good morals, but more to suggest that as a people of God, our focus should not simply be on whether we can mold people to look like we think they should, but rather to be ambassadors of Jesus, people who show the world the way of Christ. It is a way that includes participating in the messiness of people's humanity. And a way that doesn't ever believe that "the way" through the messiness is by our own strength to be morally good, but rather that we know "THE ONE" who will carry us through the messiness and into everlasting life. Real life.

Marva Dawn in the book "The Unnecessary Pastor" writes,

“One of the most severe failures in churches today is that so often preaching has become therapeutic instead of proclamatory. The point of sermons is not to tell listeners how to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps; we don’t advise hem on how to fix their lives and adjust their attitudes. Rather, we preach to paint so beautiful and compelling a vision of the kingdom of God that we enable the hearers to inhabit it.” (The Unnecessary Pastor, 149)

Not only do I think this to be true but I think it's vital to long term kingdom work in the churches of North America (and elsewhere for that matter). As ambassadors of Christ, or as ambassadors of reconciliation as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5, we are constantly pointing people to the fact that life, true life is outside of their abilities and their moralities and inside the love of God as we know it through Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ we have such a beautiful vision in which to live, that we have to ask why would we live elsewhere in worlds filled with "bootstraps?"

Revelation 22:1-5 says:

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever."

In Christ both now and forevermore

Happy New Year!