CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST
June 27, 2010
25424 Aldine-Westfield, Spring, TX. 77373
www.blakehart.com/cypresswoodbulletin.htm
PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS:
God’s
will for our congregation Various
friends, relatives and co-workers
Our
nation, leaders and military God’s
people through out the world
PRACTICAL ATHEISTS
“But mark this. There will be
terrible times in the last days. People
will…having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people” (2 Timothy 3:1, 5).
I
was finishing up Joshua Graves book, The Feast, subtitled How to
serve Jesus in a famished world, when in the last chapter he stated the
following:
“But perhaps the thing that
breaks my heart the most is one you would not expect. I’m heart-
broken for those who spend much
of their lives as ‘practical atheists.’
A practical atheist may
or may not believe in the
existence of God -- that is inconsequential.
A practical atheist is one who
fails to see the work of God in
the different episodes of life. A
practical atheist believes that
God has left us alone and is no
longer interested in the affairs of our lives.
A practical atheist
does not believe in the power of
God to transform lives. Practical
atheists tend to hide in
church, knowing many things
about God without realizing God’s power” (1).
When
I read that, several things came to mind.
The first was a sermon I had preached with the same title. The text came from Luke 12:13-21, the Parable
of the Rich Fool. It was spoken in a
context of two brothers arguing over an inheritance. The parable is about a man who was rich, had
a great harvest, and decided to build more barns to store his harvest. He thought nothing of others nor of God. God calls him a fool and states that he would
die the very evening of the thought of building more. The message by Jesus is that we need to be
rich toward God and that would be seen in how one relates to God and others,
such as caring for the poor, etc.
The
second thought was how we live our lives.
Of course preachers harp on living a God-like life, a radical lifestyle,
but we are all imperfect at this, making many mistakes, committing many
sins. After I finished reading this
book, I heard a commercial for a new book called Christian Atheists. I looked at the website where it explains
that the author writes about how we see things and how we should see life as
God’s people (2). The reviews have been
good that I have seen so far.
The
third and final thought that came to me after reading Joshua’s words is the one
that is most disturbing. It comes from
how we have seen things within churches of Christ. While the title practical atheist
might not fit us exactly, though I can see what both authors are getting at, we
have lived in a deistic culture. Deism
is a philosophy that states that God began everything, set it on its course,
and has left humanity on its own to deal with everything. Some of our founding fathers were deists such
as Thomas Jefferson, though they often support religious ideas and attended
church; Jefferson in the rotunda of the Capital building.
In
churches of Christ, we have developed a similar idea. God sent Jesus Christ into the world to die
for us, raised Him and took Him back to heaven, sent His Holy Spirit to give us
His word, the Bible, then took Him back to heaven, leaving us on our own
because the word is sufficient for us to get by. We have often explained that this is taught
in scripture. However, in looking at the
context of this type of statement, maybe we have been more affected by culture
than by scripture. Alexander and Thomas
Campbell, early leaders within churches of Christ (3), developed many of their
ideas at the same time as those early founding fathers lived. They were influenced by many of the same
ideas. Now I am not saying that the
Campbells were deists but the way they expressed things seems, in my mind, to
have caused their followers to pick up some of those ideas.
For
instance, in explaining how the church was made up and governed, an early
preacher used our form of government to explain it. There must be a constitution for a nation and
for the church, that is the Bible. There
must be a territory to control and that would be the kingdom/church idea. Therefore the church and kingdom are one and
the same. There must be a ruler; that
would be Jesus. There must be people
ruled over; that would be the church.
Sounds good and for that day, it used a cultural idea to explain
scripture. The question is however, is
this the way it is?
In
developing this, we also developed another idea. We have developed the independent, pull
yourself up by your own bootstrap philosophy found in the makeup of our
nation. Tim Woodroof explains it this
way:
“We chose this as our defining
pattern because we believed that when we perfectly restored
the first century
pattern, we should usher in a revival of first century power and effectiveness.
Function would follow form. We convinced ourselves that the harmony,
fervor, and holiness
we saw in the ancient church
would break out afresh in the modern church-if only we could
reinstate the church pattern
they followed. By ‘doing church’ in the
same way the ancients
‘did church,’ we too could
become a church that turned the world upside down, changed
lives, and brought glory to God”
(4).
Get
the pattern right and we will grow like they did sounds good. It all depends on us getting the pattern
right. What have we missed?
First,
we have missed the meaning of the good news of Jesus. I know I have harped on this before but it is
important. The word “kingdom” means rule
or reign. We live under the rule of
God. We are servants in His kingdom or
rule and until we understand that, we will not even begin to come close to what
they did in the first century. God is
King, Jesus is Lord, and we are servants.
Too often we are like the people in the Parable of the Tenants (Matthew
21:33-46). We want to control the
vineyard, the church -- which by the way is you and me -- rather than accept
the rule of landowner or king; in this case God.
Too
often we want our way instead of humbly bowing before the King. We reason that God has given us a mind to
reason with, and so we do not have to spend time praying to God; an argument I
heard in a meeting one time. We open and
close meetings with a prayer, do what we want, and think that we have God’s
approval, because we do what “we” want.
We do not take the advantage of spending time in prayer to God because
we do not have the time, or do not believe that God might actually give us
direction in prayer.
Second,
we think that scripture is all we need.
For any number of reasons -- some of which are overreactions -- we have
assumed that God is just watching “out there” somewhere. In part, it is our failure to understand that
all of scripture is important. God has
always wanted to live with His people.
In the Garden we see God walking in the cool of the day. In the wilderness, the Tabernacle in the
middle of the camp was to be God’s dwelling place, and for that to happen, the
camp must be holy. The same could be
said of the Temple. God in Christ came
among humanity and He promised that He would not leave us alone (see John 14-16
in particular).
After
Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, He sent the Holy Spirit to come and give us
His word, and to stay and live among His people, the church. The Spirit did not return to heaven. Just look at the texts that refer to what the
Spirit is doing among us, if we allow Him.
He is leading us (Galatians 5 and Romans 8), He is developing His fruit in our lives (Galatians
5:22-23). He is a guarantee of our
inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14).
He is a gift to us (Acts 2:38).
We have fellowship with Him (2 Corinthians 13:14). He is to renew us (Titus 3:5-6). We are His temple, both corporately and
individually (1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:19-20).
There
is a fear that if God is active, then unusual things would happen. We want to be like the first century church
but refuse the power that caused that group to expand. We lack trust in God and so we have no power;
not even power to live the Christ-like life.
As Paul told Timothy, we have a form of godliness but lack the
power. So maybe we have become “practical
atheists.”
Now
that I have identified the problem, what do we do? I have no secret answers. First, we need to pray, but not just pray, but
spend time listening and observing. We
need to talk among ourselves and use the mind that God has given us to reason
what would be best, according to the scriptures. There might be some challenges in that. Our comfort zones might be challenged. We need to see life though the eyes of
God. David saw many of his actions
through the eyes of God. He often
appealed to God in various situations such as God saving him from doing something
foolish or giving directions.
I
don’t know how all this works, and I certainly haven’t gotten anywhere near the
relationship to God I would like to have.
We need to learn to trust that God is working, and open our eyes to see
what He is doing. When Elisha’s town was
surround by the enemy, his servant was frightened. Elisha asked God to open his eyes and when He
did, the servant saw the army of God! We
need our eyes opened to the power of God that He has given us through His
Spirit. Part of this comes through daily
practice of looking at life from God’s perspective. N.T. Wright reminds us of what it took for
Sully Sullenberger to land the Air Bus on the Hudson River. He had practiced and practiced through
simulations, flying gliders, and making
decisions daily in flying. When
the engines went out after hitting a flock of geese, he had two minutes to
bring the plane down. One hundred and
twenty seconds. Eliminating two airports
and realizing that there was only one choice, he head for the river. No one had ever successfully landed a
passenger plane on water. He did
everything right, not because he was lucky, not because he was guessing, but
because he had practiced for years (5).
So
let us move from practical atheists to God empowered people who, by our
lives, will challenge in word and deed, those who see our trusting and godly
lives.
George
B. Mearns
(1)
Joshua Graves, The Feast,
Leafwood, 2009, p. 152.
(2)
Craig Groeschel, published by Zondervan.
See www.christianatheist.com
(3)
We are also known as the Restoration Movement.
(4)
Tim Woodroof, A Pattern to Lean On, copied 4/1/2010, from www.wineskins.org dated 3/29/2010. See also his book, A Spirit for the Rest
of Us, Leafwood, 2009.
(5)
N. T. Wright, After You Believe, Harper One, 2010, p. 18ff.