James 3:16:

“…where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and ever vile practice.”

We ask ourselves about some chronic sin, ‘why do I keep doing this?’, we look at our churches and say, ‘why don’t we look anything like the faithful depicted in scripture’, we look at our culture and our corporations and wonder, ‘why does that happen?’.

‘That lawsuit is just greedy.’

‘She hit me with her car, why is she yelling?’

‘Why isn’t he there for his kids?’

‘Why can’t he spend even one night without getting drunk and passing out?’

Sin has its roots in our personal and pervasive commitment to our own ambition. From the very first sin beneath that tree, it was only considering ourselves that lead us to neglect God and the purposes he had designed for us. And it continues today in every country, culture, people group, family and individual. Even the church. It is the personal commitment to self and our ambitions that leads to ‘disorder and every vile practice.’

I’ve often spoken to people frustrated by their inability to stop sinning. I sympathize because in so many ways, I suffer the same frustration.

The total message of James, and the frequently overlooked solution, I believe is this: We must see and trust God’s grace, and we must meet that with our own personal commitment to selflessness.

James 1:27:

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans, and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

As we know from the whole of scripture, by trusting God’s grace, we have the power to live a religion undefiled before God, and by our own commitment to selflessness, our actions, by the same grace of God, begin to fall in line with those of God’s desire.

Of course, that is all much easier written that worked. It’s a good thing grace is the much greater part, no matter what it’s contrasted with.

I’ve been thinking this morning about our access to God. I take it for granted. Praying openly without thinking about how incredible it is that I am able to simple speak to God. That I’m not immediately swallowed up because of my sin.

There is a Catholic notion of the tabernacle. It’s a space where the Catholic church places the eucharist—what Catholics believe to be the actually body of Christ used during communion. The tabernacle can only be accessed by a priest and it is treated as holy ground. This is a concept borrowed from the Jewish concept of the same name.

God commanded Moses, in excruciating detail, just how to build the tabernacle. Once a year could the high priest enter into holiest of grounds. It’s even said that a rope would be tied to the ankle of the priest who went in, just in case he was struck dead for some reason, they would be able to drag his body out, since no one else would be able to enter.

But the Catholic sect of Christianity seems to have a corporate denial of the complete message of the Gospel. The tabernacle is among the traditions eradicated because of the fulfilling work of Christ. We are all priests and we all have full access to God, to the holiest places, because of Christ.

Christ became the true high priest, he entered the holiest of places, bore all the wrath due to mankind, not with the blood of animals, but with his own all sufficient blood and once and for all removed the curtain that kept us out. Not to mention, by drenching us in his own blood, we are now protected from the wrath that would lash out and destroy us should we approach on our own.

Hebrews 9:11-12

When Christ appeared as a high priest… through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Placing anything between us and God is an absolute neglect of what God has done in Christ to bring us to himself. This is among the paramount messages of the Gospel. To deny this would be like insisting to send word of your child’s birth by messenger pigeon, rather than email.

It’s an incredible thing that we can approach God. And it’s almost just as dumbfounding when Christians will not exercise this incredible privilege.

Philippians 3:12

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

Paul has just finished talking about the perfection we will achieve when we come into glory with Christ. He’s speaking about sanctification. And he’s made it clear that he’s not perfect. He’s admitting his imperfection and his own proneness to sin.

He hasn’t already obtained it, but he’s trying. Imagine that.

But it’s that last bit that I forget. Sanctification is an ongoing process of which we are co-workers with God. God shapes and forms us in all kinds of ways, meanwhile we attempt constantly to mortify the flesh. But why? Because Christ has made us his own.

By Christ’s blood, we were purchased and invited into the family of God. We are objects of mercy, which God is taking great care to conform to his own image. But what motivates us to fulfill our part is the constant and growing knowledge that we were bought with a price, that we are not our own. That we were plucked from the pathway of doom, and placed down in the seat of mercy, in spite of our widespread infection of imperfection.

It it is gratitude. It is our striving to live a life worthy of the Gospel. It is the child who knows his father loves him and does not want to disappoint him. Of course we will. And for that, there is grace too, yet again, feeding the motivation and desire to stand and reflect God’s glory back to the world.

John Piper writes in 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die:

One of the greatest heartaches in the Christian life is the slowness of our change. We hear the summons of God to love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30). But do we ever rise to that totality of affection and devotion? We cry out regularly with the apostle Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). We groan even as we take fresh resolves: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12).

Piper continues, referring to this verse. Hebrews 10:14:

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

And so Piper continues:

One of the greatest sources of joy and endurance for the Christian is knowing that in the imperfection of our progress we have already been perfected—and that this is owing to the suffering and death of Christ. “For by a single offering [namely, him-self!] he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). This is amazing! In the same sentence he says we are “being sanctified” and we are already “perfected.”

There is a tension, a dichotomy, going on here. We are both perfect, and being perfected. It is a mystery of sorts. Both are completely true. In Christ, we are perfect and thanks to Christ we are being made perfect.

It’s as if the princess kissed the toad and he is now a prince. He really is a prince. But now he has to learn to act like that which he really is.

Christians have been made perfect in Christ. Now we just have to learn to act like it.

Nearly two years ago I wrote from this same verse in 2 Kings, but today as I crossed this verse again, I found a different application altogether.

2 Kings 18:4:

“…and he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it”

If you remember, the bronze serpent was that which Moses crafted when God sent deadly serpents among the Israelites in the desert as a punishment. God, commanded Moses to make the bronze serpent that when anyone looked at it, they would be healed from the afflicting serpent’s venom.

Centuries later, the bronze serpent is still around and the people were sacrificing to it; worshipping it as though it were of some value in and of itself.

I can’t help but draw the connection between this serpent and our church system.

There was a time when men of our faith built a church system for a culture that needed it. As a beacon for them to look to, flock to, and inhabit. As a structure which would would help people be and do as God intended them. But centuries later, the culture has changed. That system effectiveness is mostly drained and, in some places and some ways, it actually drags people down, rather than being the help it once was.

What’s more, the time and energy and money that is poured into the system in order to preserve it could be looked at as something almost like a national idolatry.

Like Hezekiah, the church system needs to be broken in pieces so that people stop worshipping the thing, and their attention given where it really ought to be. On Christ, on his mission for the world and his love for his people. This is not the system, and the system does not accomplish this well—or hardly at all.

My favorite part of the Old Testament is definitely the stories of Elijah and Elisha. I suppose because they’re some of the most potent places we see God’s power moving directly through a person. Plus, they’re just plain cool… maybe even bad-ass. (Though I’m not sure that’s the best reason to appreciate it).

Reading in 1st Kings about Elijah this morning, I came upon the story of Elijah’s God-off with prophets of Baal. The story where the prophets of Baal and Elijah each build an alter and slaughter a bull on it, then ask their respective God to consume the offering with fire. The God who responds is the true God.

Of course the prophets of Baal chant and dance around and mutilate themselves and nothing happens. Meanwhile Elijah goes out of his way to make it impossible for the offering to burn by dumping water all over it and building a trench to catch the water. Still, God consumes the whole alter and all the water with fire and the people watching are stunned and fall down declaring the Lord is the true God.

Right before all this though Elijah provokes the other prophets and people with these words. 1 Kings 18:21:

"How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word.

I think these words are haunting. Although almost no one, especially Christians, are torn between the Lord and some definite false deity, nearly everyone offers at least a portion of their worship to something other than God. Money, power, love, family, success, even ministry.

Elijah’s words are potent to us who are Christians. “Well which is it, is your _____________ (fill in the blank; money, power, success, etc.) the God you will serve, or is it the Lord God in heaven?”

Because as Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters. Yet we continue to try and split our attention. We will probably struggle with that till the day we die. But as Elijah proved to the prophets of Baal, even the most rigorous tests of God’s power prove that God is the Lord of all and always prevails.

If we want to really enjoy him and live our fullest in him, we have to choose and live that choice.

Galatians 2:4-5:

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

That phrase “preserved for you”, when referring to the Gospel, really caught me this morning. The sense of the word ‘preserved’ is that it would ‘continue’ or ‘last’ or ‘live on’. The whole passage has this sense that Paul is protecting the Gospel, not only for now, but for the future as well. He will not allow the Gospel of Jesus, which is grace and truth in its purest form, to be convoluted by individuals who would tack things onto it, or water it down with anything.

Of course, for me, it immediately made me think of our own corporate church system today. Virtually every corridor of the organizational church makes big compromises—some motivated by fear, some by ‘love’ and some are just plain insidious. But all seem to fail to ‘preserve’ the Gospel.

Some churches, out of fear of losing numbers, will refrain from preaching some passages of the bible. Yet all passages of the Bible inform, or are informed by the Gospel. They must be preached faithfully. Some churches in hopes of bringing in and not turning-off lost people remove iconic Christian symbol—like the Cross. The message of the cross itself isn’t far behind. And still some churches, with wicked and greedy motives, simply preach whatever will be most likely to produce a giving spirit in the congregation.

While the motives and the forms and degrees vary, the result is always a gospel that begins to deteriorate. The Gospel is not preserved. Regardless of the risk, it’s crucial that our churches do what they must to hold fast to and preach the (whole) Gospel.