Last week we discussed the stewardship of the believer, and positive ways to grow in spiritual strength as a saint and disciple of Christ. This week, if God grants, let's discuss the dangerous detours that Satan uses to turn believers from production that glorifies God and into lives of quiet uselessness for our Savior.
The average Christian is aware that the war between God and Satan was won at the Cross of Christ. For the Bible states:
Hebrews 12:2 “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
and again:
1 Corinthians 15:57-58 “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
The war was won at the Cross, but it was a hard-won victory, one that cost Our Lord so much. It was a war fought at every turn by Satan, that wily general, who up until the moment of Christ's resurrection thought that he had won. And it was a war that brought the bitter taste of defeat to that old Devil when, on Easter morn, our Savior left the tomb to walk among man once more, finally ascending to sit down at the right hand of God the Father in glory. The average Christian knows that the war was won, but the battle is far from over.
Among early Christians Satan often used direct attack methods to futilely destroy the Church that Christ paid for with His own blood. When you read the Foxes Book of Martyrs you read of the terrible things that man devised to try and scare believers away from Christianity. One method, crucifixion, devised by cruel Roman soldiers as a means to torment rodents, was particularly inhumane. As a person hung on a cross made of splintery trash wood, nails through the hands and feet, he would find it difficult to breath. This is because the unnatural position of the hanging body would cause the diaphragm to constrict. In order to breath the person would literally have to pull himself up on the nails, causing more blood loss, and more weakness. As he weakened he would droop again, be unable to breathe, and in a weakened state be forced to pull himself upward again. This vicious cycle would continue until the relief of death came.
Another method was death by slow burning, where a small fire was built under a staked believer until he died. And who can forget the old movies we've seen where believers were cast into coliseums with lions, bears, all manner of beasts, where they would be torn to pieces by these starved creatures. All the Christian had to do was publicly deny Christ, and he would be spared.
Yet with all these tortures, all these inhuman trials, believers refused to deny the Lord that saved them. In fact, millions were coming into the fold yearly because of the way these brave Christians met their deaths. Satan discovered that the direct attack was ineffective because, rather than turn believers away from Christ, it focused their eyes on Him. Church tradition teaches us that Peter, that Great Apostle, when faced with crucifixion asked to be crucified upside down, for he felt unworthy to die the same death as His Lord. So Satan, that great general, began to use different tactics. Not new tactics by any means, for he had used these before. You see, Satan understands that the true battlefield for the Christian begins in the mind. So he set out some detours, some harmless looking traps to divert Christians from their true task of glorifying Christ, to attempt to lead us into ineffectiveness. Let's look at some of these seemingly harmless “detours from the faith”.
Mark 10.35-44 “And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared. And when the ten heard it, they began to be much displeased with James and John. But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”
And this was right, wasn't it? Faithful service should be rewarded by special privilege, shouldn't it? No, it shouldn't! One of the seemingly harmless detours that Satan places before us is the “corporate mentality view of the Church”. This is the idea that, if I work hard, if I serve faithfully, then I can rise to the top of my Local Church as a Leader, a respected member, one to be contended with. Yet this detour is far from what Jesus taught of servant hood.
The Church is not a corporation where you get to the top
by walking on the backs of other members. The Church is a Body of believers,
the Body of Christ, each one lifting the other up in prayer and love. There
is an old Chinese saying that is applicable here: “If you take one stick
and bend it, it is easy to break. Yet if you take many sticks, bind them
together as one, it is impossible to break”. This was Christ's will for
the Church. Unlike the corporate mentality where “the cream rises to the
top”, the Church is composed of many servants with varying Gifts. Where
one is weak the other is strong, where one has no Gift the other has the
needed Gift. In the Church we do not rise to the top of the corporation,
we lower ourselves to serve one another. And he who would lead can only
attain this position by being the Greatest Servant within the local Body.
Satan would have
us be a corporation, one preferring himself above the
other, one setting himself higher than his brother. God Wills the opposite,
that we prefer our brother above ourselves, that we serve one another in
humility and love. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
Romans 12:3-5 “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”
We must work together in harmony, we must lift one another up in love, we must serve one another. We must avoid the corporate mentality detour of Satan. Remember, the Lion always makes his kill when he separates one from the herd. When you fall away from the Body, fall away from this blessed union, then you become easy prey.
Under the old Mosaic Law it was easy to determine what was and was not sin. This was because God specified 10 base Commandments and over 2000 ramifications of these Laws, having them clearly written on parchment so that every Israelite knew exactly what was and was not sin. We who are Christians do not live by the Mosaic code, we live by the Law of the Spirit in Love one toward another. Yet many in Christianity are often confused, often think that because “it's not written down as a sin, and I am saved, then I am free to do it”.
We may be free, by the Law, to do many things. Yet even
the most innocent and pure thing, if done without considering the Law of
Love one toward another, can become sin because of the wedge that it drives
into the Body of Christ. All around the Church at Corinth there were idolatrous
temples to Asharoth, Baal, Zeus, and Venus. The idolaters would come to
their temples and, on their visits, sacrifice animals to these false gods.
After the animals were sacrificed the temples would give the meat to vendors
who would sell it on the open market at vastly reduced prices, mainly because
orthodox Jews wouldn't touch meat that had been sacrificed in such a manner.
Some Corinthian Christians, knowing that “meat is only meat”, and not participating
in the idolatry in any way, would buy this meat openly from the vendors.
Was the action in itself a violation of the Mosaic Law? No, absolutely
not! But the action was sin because other Christians saw them buying this
meat and were deeply offended by the action. Some Christians actually stumbled
and went into these temples
because they thought, “Since XXX, who is so righteous
can buy this meat, then I can go into the temple itself”. The misused liberty
of one Christian became the yoke of bondage for another.
We as believer must never forget that in the Church we are all growing in Christ, yet we are not all at the same stage of development. And this is perfectly natural. Just as two children born at the same time will learn to speak and walk at different times, so we all grow at an individual pace controlled by the Holy Spirit and our study of God's Word. My job as your brother is to help you grow, to lift you up before God, just as that is your job toward me. What is lawful to me, lawful for me in my relationship with Jesus Christ, may not be lawful for you. As Paul said, 1 Corinthians 8:13: “Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.” Our number one concern must always be love one toward another, not just as lip service, but in our every action.
In all of our discussion of servant hood there's one thing we need to make clear: All of Satan's detours always lean toward one extreme or the other. The opposite of the “Corporate mentality” detour is the “I'm not fit to serve Him” trap. And many many Christians have fallen prey to this devilish tactic.
Ken Hemphill, the President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in the book Serving God: “We are created in the image of God, redeemed by the Grace of God, filled and Gifted by the Spirit of God, and chosen by the hand of God to serve alongside Him for the redemption of the world”. What an awesome statement of Biblical truth! When God made man in the Garden, and man willfully and sinfully walked away from God, the Father set in motion a plan of salvation that reached its culmination in Jesus Christ some ten thousand years later. God wanted a relationship with each one of us to sacrifice His Son. When we accept Christ as Savior we became worthy and valuable because of that relationship. You are each worthy and useful to God because of Jesus! You are each needed to serve within the Body, regardless of age or gender. The Bible says of our position in Christ:
Revelation 1:5-6 “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
Too many Christians have stepped onto Satan's detour of “I am not fit to serve Him”, so many, in fact, that many Churches are crippled because of it. Some Christians fall into this trap because they stumble, sin, and rather than confess their sin to God beat themselves over the head with it. Other believers, when they fail in service, stop coming to Church entirely, feeling that to forget the sin is to make it better. They forget the commandment of 1 John 1.8-9, which reads:
1 John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
We all, as believers, have value to God. Would he have called us to the great work of evangelism (Matthew 28:18-20) if we were useless? Remember that Peter, that Great Apostle, denied his Lord three times, yet it was Peter who stood before the Lord and heard the Great Commission given out. Remember that Paul the Apostle, that great Christian, hunted down Christians for the Sanhedrin and was even present at the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8). Paul himself recognized his sins when he said,
1 Timothy 1:15-16 “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”
Yet God would use Paul to write the largest part of the New Testament. How much poorer would we all have been if, when God asked Paul to write the Church epistles, he had said, “Not me Lord, I'm not worthy”. I can't imagine my Bible without the Book of Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and especially Corinthians. Paul had his failures, remembered his failures, but was never crippled to serving God because of them.
Would God have given us each spiritual Gifts (1 Corinthians 12) if we were less than nothing? Each and every believer in this Church is needed to be actively serving Christ and one another for the glory of God and His Kingdom. The Great Work of the Church must have more than 20% of the Church serving while 80% rest on the pews. The Great Work of God, the evangelistic Church, needs all members reaching out and serving to the best of their God given ability.
1 John 4:16-21 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”
We cannot see God, but we can see our brothers and sisters in Christ, who were created in His image. How can we hate the image of God so clearly portrayed in each of us? How can we possibly hate one another over offenses and still be Christ like? Yet in Churches all over America Christians take this detour, arguing and fighting over the color of the new Church carpet or paint job, fussing over who was made head of what committee, wrathful because someone you thought was a good friend “snubbed” you. It should not be so, it must not be so!
True love, the love of Christ within us, stretches when offended. It reaches out, looking for the best in every person. We must do this with one another as Christ has done with us.
Our Lord said:
John 7:37-38 “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
If anything that I've said today has made you thirsty for a little more, feel that your life is somehow incomplete, then won't you give Jesus a chance? Once you come forward and accept Him as Savior He promises:
John 6:37 “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
Won't you give Jesus a chance?
But one night, just before the actor was to offer his customary recital of Psalm 23, a young man from the audience spoke up. "Sir do you mind if tonight I recite Psalm 23?" The actor was quite taken back by this unusual request, but he allowed the young man to come forward and stand front and center on the stage to recite the psalm, knowing that the ability of this unskilled youth would be no match for his own talent.
With a soft voice, the young man began to recite the words of the psalm. When he was finished, there was no applause. There was no standing ovation as on other nights. All that could be heard was the sound of weeping. The audience had been so moved by the young man's recitation that every eye was full of tears. Amazed by what he had heard, the actor said to the youth, "I don't understand. I have been performing Psalm 23 for years. I have a lifetime of experience and training - but I have never been able to move an audience as you have tonight. Tell me, what is your secret?"
The young man humbly replied, "Well sir, you know the psalm... but I know the shepherd."
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