Kingdom Builders - but Whose Kingdom?

This morning I have been reading through the book of Amos. This is probably my favorite book in the Bible as it clearly demonstrates what the intentions of the law were and what God's heart is for His people.

The central message of the book is that every human being has become a tyrant fighting to overthrow God, the one good King. In this effort we have thrown everyone else to the ground where we attempt to walk all over them. We are building our own kingdoms under the delusion that our ways are better than than Gods and that we are just as capable of running things as He is. This was the temptation which led to the first sin, and it is the same temptation that creeps in on us every moment of every day, especially on those of us who know the Lord and what He requires, but often decide to do it our way, anyway.

This attitude is one of pride and arrogance, and is demonstrated well in Amos 2:6-8, "...they have perverted justice by selling honest people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals. They trample helpless people in the dust and deny justice to those who are oppressed. Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting My holy name. At their religious festivals, they lounge around in clothing stolen form their debtors. In the house of their God, they present offerings of wine purchased with stolen money."

In our arrogance we find ourselves thinking that we are better than that. I mean, I have never sold anyone for a pair of shoes or any of that stuff. But we must look at the heart of the issue. These accusations that the Lord brings against His people are that they still don't understand that all people are created in His image and worthy of being treated fairly. We may not sell the neighborhood kids for a new pair of Sketchers, but too often we do treat our relationships as a means for personal gain.

God continues in Amos 5:21, in one of the most terrifying passages of scripture, by saying, "I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies...Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living."

What He is saying is that it will never be enough to simply be religious people, or even claim to be born-again if there is never any heart change toward people and toward God.

To follow God as loyal subjects of His Kingdom is demonstrated by humbling ourselves not only before God, but before all men as well. If we continue to see ourselves as more important of more valuable than even one person, then we are still merely building kingdoms of our own, even though they have a very spiritual appearance to them.

The challenge comes to us in Amos 5:14-15 in which He says, "Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the Lord God Almighty will truly be your helper, just as you have claimed He is. Hate evil and love what is good; remodel your courts into true halls of justice. Perhaps even yet the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the people who remain."

This calling on our lives is recurrent on almost every page of scripture. Perhaps we all have some self-examination to do, and then some kingdoms to start deconstructing so that His can be built.

The Lesser of Two Evils?

Today I am faced with quite a predicament. On November 4th I will be traveling to Panama on a church mission trip, so today I need to go to the courthouse and vote early. The problem is, that even with the full election only a couple of weeks away, I still cannot see myself voting for either presidential candidate.

Everyday my inbox is flooded with emails on why Obama is evil and cannot be trusted. Honestly, I don't trust the man, but not because he is black. Not because he has a Muslim background. Not because of Bill Ayers, or any of the other things you see in the news. Deep down, I don't trust him because it is how I have been brought up - Republican. Most democrats scare me. Not the people, but the things they seem to believe to be true.

On the other side, I hate the idea of voting for John McCain. I know he is a war hero and that he has all the experience, etc. But since I first became interested in politics after 9/11, all I have ever known of John McCain is that he flip flops on too many issues, he lies without excuse, and I have learned that he cannot be trusted.

People keep telling me that I have to pick the lesser of two evils. Most of them (being that I am still in west Texas) say that, meaning that I have to vote John McCain. But I hate that my only option is to pick whichever one is the least unfavorable. I mean, I understand each party's beliefs on government, foreign policy and economics, but when we come right down to today, neither of them become favorable.

On the democratic side we have a candidate who will not go to war just because it is good business (that's good to me), in fact, they want to stop spending excessively on a war that will never really end at the rate we are going (also good to me). But then they also want to instill higher taxes and have government controls over business. They support big government which costs more and takes freedoms out of the individual's hands. None of that sounds good to me.

On the republican side, we have a candidate who is definatly a warmonger, as shown in his history, support of staying indefinitely in Iraq, and spending more and more money on newer military technology (I believe that war cannot lead to peace, it only births hatred and more war, so this is bad to me). McCain also supports tax cuts and letting people control their own lives (this is good to me). I don't like the huge tax cuts for big business, but I also don't like higher taxes on myself from the other party so this one is better.

Presidential election are more than just choosing the leader of the free world, sometimes it is literally a matter of life and death. For example: If I vote for Barak Obama, I am voting to strengthen Roe v. Wade, and make abortion more legal than it already is. But, if I vote for McCain, he will fight to make abortion illegal, yet he will send more of our countries 'greatest resource' overseas to fight and continue to die. Which one is better, to die before birth or at age 17?

To state this very clearly: I don't want to vote for Barak Obama. I don't want to vote for John McCain. I am stuck.

I am not going to tell you who to vote for or anything like that, but I am going to encourage you to think a little bit before you do. Don't think that this is just another election that will come and go. This will decide our fate for at least the next four years. So pray about it. Seek God's will. And vote with some kind of conviction. T.hen, when whoever wins sucks (because he will), take peace in the sovereignty of God (see Daniel 2:20-21)

I know this is a jumbled rant, but leave me your thoughts.

Missing Sermon Highlights

If you are listening to the sermons I have been preaching through 1 Peter, you will notice that there is one missing. Here is the very basic outline of that message.

The passage is 1 Peter 1:13 through 2:3 and is divided into two sections. The first section is 1:13-20 and I called it 'Obedience in Our Proximity to God.' In chapter 1, Peter starts out with the vocabulary of adoption concerning how we fit into God's family. This continues that language by calling us to continue to hope in God. If He has adopted us, then He will continue to bring us through as we are his children. It then tells us to learn to live as God's obedient children and not to slip back into our old ways. We are to "be holy as God is holy."

This reference that Peter uses takes us back to the book of Leviticus where God calls his people to be holy as He is holy in 11:44-45. God then continually throughout Leviticus tells them to do or not do certain things "because I am the Lord your God." The Jews Leviticus was written to had just been released from slavery by this God and so what He is essentially telling them is that in Egypt, they belonged to Pharaoh and acted like Egyptians, but now they are walking with God, they are His people, so He expects them to act a certain way. In the same way they were told this in Exodus, Peter writes to tell us that since we have been adopted into this new family, we need to start taking on some family traits.

The second section, 1:21-2:3 changes from using the adoption language to using terms like "born-again." I called this section 'Obedience in Our New Nature.' It is in this section that Peter begins taking the idea that we, as humans, are consumed with sin (called 'total depravity'), but that God has cleansed us from sin and is regenerating us into the image of God. As a result, our nature is changed from being sinful to showing a new, more Christ-like nature, in which our actions are not just played out in trying to do right even when we don't want to, but to the point that we do right because that is what God has placed in our hearts to do.

The first section - walking in obedience due to our proximity to God - calls us out of any idea of having a license to sin, while the second section - walking in obedience due to our new nature - prevents us from falling into legalism and simply trying to adhere to some strict moral code. We are adopted into a family requiring obedience to God's Word because He wants us to, but through the process of sanctification, we are also set free to obey God's Word because we want to.

Leave me your thoughts.

Update and Sermon Audio

Hey all, sorry I haven't blogged anything in the past week. I have been sick and anything I thought would be profound probably wouldn't have made sense. Also, I tried to put last weeks sermon audio online but the recording was messed up and didn't work. Anyways, I am almost over all the sickness and tonight's recording worked so here is the audio. I will type up the highlights of the missing sermon for whoever wants it tomorrow.

Gabcast! Scott's Sermon Audio #4 - 1 Peter 2:4-12

Preached October 19, 2008 at Grace Baptist Church, Odessa, TX

Sermon Audio

Click Here!!!

This isn't on the topic of tolerance, but it is huge. Click above, read the statistics, ask where your church fits, figure out where we need to change. Feel free to discuss this in the comments.

Tolerance

Recently I submitted an article for a soon-to-be-released book on the issue of Morals and American Culture. In this article I wrote:

Aristotle said, “Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society,” yet it seems that these two precisely describe modern day America. We have come to a place where no one wants to buy into absolute truths, yet we still expect that America can hold on to her freedoms and privileges without question. If we no longer hold to any self-evident truths, then we have no grounds on which our nation can stand.

If the moral standard for America is to take all you can before it is taken from you, then we do not believe “that all men are created equal” nor do all men share in the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” What we essentially believe is that I have the right to do whatever I want even at the expense of everyone else around. And then when I feel that my self-given rights are violated I loudly declare intolerance.

A couple of weeks ago I was hanging out with some new friends talking about going to a local fair. One mentioned the fact that she wanted to bring another friend but that he was gay, and wanted to know if I would be okay with that. My response was that I would be fine hanging around with him, but would he be okay hanging around with me. My reasoning was that if he is gay, and that is how he defines himself as a person, then I should expect him to act in such a way to display this identity. In the same way, if I define myself as a Christian and a minister, then he should also expect me to act in such a way as to display my own identity. In other words, if he is going to want me to be okay when he points out how hott some other guy is, then I should also expect him to be fine with me talking about how amazing my God is.

Even as you read these words, I suspect that you see the improbability in this happening. What I find in scripture is that people are consumed by sin. That is what identifies everyone. The version of tolerance you will hear preached on every avenue in American culture is aimed at tolerance of sin. I am not talking about equality of race or gender here, because we as Americans hold that it is evident that everyone is created equal in the eyes of God. I am talking about the type of tolerance for any belief system that embraces that there are not universal morals and will accept any action as acceptable. Meaning, I should be okay with him being gay, because it doesn't infringe on my Christianity, but I must hold back my beliefs because they are opposed to his own lifestyle.

If sin is what defines the human race, then I could easily go on a rant here about existentialism and how what you justify for yourself to do as acceptable you therefore justify for all men to do, but I think what describes what I am talking about better than that is found in Romans 1:32. This passage is talking about people who have heard the truth of God but refuse to turn to Him. It says, "They know God's justice... yet they continue to sin anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do so, too."

Here is the reality for us as Christians. We cannot try to enter this culture of tolerance and expect to have our gospel accepted and embraced. It will embrace any form of sinful nature because it does not bring the guild and shame on them that the gospel does, but they will continue to refuse to hear the truth of scripture. Jesus told the disciples that the servant is no better than his master so if they hated Jesus, they will hate us too. Well, in the end, they hated Jesus. In fact, all but one of the disciples ended up murdered too. If you are faithful, don't expect a warm welcome by the lost because your life is convicting to them.

All of that said, what we must do is to strive to be faithful to the work which God has called us to, realizing that things aren't always going to go well for us. I want to urge you guys this week to remain unwavering in your faith, even when the world hates you for it.

Hilarious Video

(The will lead into next week's topic: Tolerance)