Purity... Part 1
So often when the word purity is thrown out in a church setting, it is only referring to one thing: sex. I mean, the 90's were the era of True Love Waits (and many did!) and that had to be what purity was about, right? Unfortunately, many would say yes.
Why do I say unfortunately you might ask? Because purity means SO much more than simply "not having sex." Instead, we've developed a church culture where it's generally okay to get under a girls shirt, have oral sex, mutual masturbation or anything else as long as we stop short of "intercourse." In fact, so many students have this perspective, which is leeched from the True Love Waits campaigns of the past/present mixed with an equal amount of current cultural thought. What it amounts to in sum, is a ton of students (and adults!) who say they believe in God, but live as if He didn't exist. Craig Groeschel (pastor of Life Church in Edmond, OK) called the phenomena "Christian Atheism" and he's not off a bit. Churches today are full of people who know things, but never put them into practice. We tell people who are obese (or otherwise unhealthy) to fix their problems (and put into place guideline to help them fix their problems, like our school districts "no sugar" policy that eliminates donuts brought in by campus organizations because they contribute to childhood obesity but allows equally unhealthy "cereal and granola" bars) but won't tell people who are doing something far worse squat about it!
The idea of someone telling us we're doing something wrong is unheard of for many in our culture and their ready defense of confronted is, "You don't have the right to enforce your beliefs on me," or better yet, "That might be true for you, but it's not true for me." Some of that response might be true, but what happens when the problem isn't people outside the church but the Church itself? Why don't we see people telling others that what they are doing isn't okay? Often because people cannot read Scripture for themselves and instead swallowed the lie people spout about Jesus "telling us" not to judge people. Matthew 7 goes FAR beyond telling us not to judge, instead it is a simple reminder not to judge unfairly ("by the same measure you use, you will be judged") and that we have issues too, thus the "yank the plank" reference. I mean, who wants someone else to pull out our garbage if we're going to talk with them about theirs? Another section of Scripture used to back up this ridiculous line of reasoning is John 8. Jesus tells the Pharisees "Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone,” followed by, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one condemn you?...Than neither do I." Sounds good right, Jesus doesn't condemn a lady caught doing the horizontal mamba so why would he ever condemn us?
Unfortunately, that is grace without truth, without cost, without any reason. If there was no condemnation for our sins, Jesus would never have needed to die! Ditto that with the Jewish cultic system, there would never have been a need to sacrifice a bull, goat, ram, etc. because there was no sin to atone for! That is what people are buying into: their behavior isn't sin, per se, but is merely something they do. Or their sin was already taken care of and Jesus will forgive them (which is totally true but has problems as we'll see), so who cares? These lines of reasoning are rampant in the church today, making it a social club or activist group instead of the world changing group of outcasts who had met Jesus and been radically altered...
So, think today about what you believe and then about what you do. Do the two match? What then does that say about you? Think about it because tomorrow we're getting heavy as we discuss why purity is important and why we cannot be what we have always been...
Why do I say unfortunately you might ask? Because purity means SO much more than simply "not having sex." Instead, we've developed a church culture where it's generally okay to get under a girls shirt, have oral sex, mutual masturbation or anything else as long as we stop short of "intercourse." In fact, so many students have this perspective, which is leeched from the True Love Waits campaigns of the past/present mixed with an equal amount of current cultural thought. What it amounts to in sum, is a ton of students (and adults!) who say they believe in God, but live as if He didn't exist. Craig Groeschel (pastor of Life Church in Edmond, OK) called the phenomena "Christian Atheism" and he's not off a bit. Churches today are full of people who know things, but never put them into practice. We tell people who are obese (or otherwise unhealthy) to fix their problems (and put into place guideline to help them fix their problems, like our school districts "no sugar" policy that eliminates donuts brought in by campus organizations because they contribute to childhood obesity but allows equally unhealthy "cereal and granola" bars) but won't tell people who are doing something far worse squat about it!
The idea of someone telling us we're doing something wrong is unheard of for many in our culture and their ready defense of confronted is, "You don't have the right to enforce your beliefs on me," or better yet, "That might be true for you, but it's not true for me." Some of that response might be true, but what happens when the problem isn't people outside the church but the Church itself? Why don't we see people telling others that what they are doing isn't okay? Often because people cannot read Scripture for themselves and instead swallowed the lie people spout about Jesus "telling us" not to judge people. Matthew 7 goes FAR beyond telling us not to judge, instead it is a simple reminder not to judge unfairly ("by the same measure you use, you will be judged") and that we have issues too, thus the "yank the plank" reference. I mean, who wants someone else to pull out our garbage if we're going to talk with them about theirs? Another section of Scripture used to back up this ridiculous line of reasoning is John 8. Jesus tells the Pharisees "Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone,” followed by, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one condemn you?...Than neither do I." Sounds good right, Jesus doesn't condemn a lady caught doing the horizontal mamba so why would he ever condemn us?
Unfortunately, that is grace without truth, without cost, without any reason. If there was no condemnation for our sins, Jesus would never have needed to die! Ditto that with the Jewish cultic system, there would never have been a need to sacrifice a bull, goat, ram, etc. because there was no sin to atone for! That is what people are buying into: their behavior isn't sin, per se, but is merely something they do. Or their sin was already taken care of and Jesus will forgive them (which is totally true but has problems as we'll see), so who cares? These lines of reasoning are rampant in the church today, making it a social club or activist group instead of the world changing group of outcasts who had met Jesus and been radically altered...
So, think today about what you believe and then about what you do. Do the two match? What then does that say about you? Think about it because tomorrow we're getting heavy as we discuss why purity is important and why we cannot be what we have always been...
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