Is the Church in Denial?

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

Can you imagine God calling or sending you to minister to a culture that is self-absorbed?  We all hear about such cultures, they are full of self, self-centered, self-regarding, and some are just in love with themselves and the word for them is narcissistic.  This type of culture has little time for a higher authority, they want to be the rule makers, they do not want anyone setting a moral authority over them, they want to live for what brings them pleasure, and when it does not fill that purpose, they have no problem breaking those bonds.

You may be saying, I know some people like that but I cannot imagine a culture or nation that would be self-absorbed.  Let me introduce you to Romans 1:18-20, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.”  Paul gives us a record of what the Gentile culture looks like, it had many gods but was a society void of God, and it wanted only gods that would not restrict or convict it of sin.  This was why the apostles needed to instruct the Gentile church on living a life pleasing to God.  God had not only redeemed them, (bought then out of sin, paid the debt that God required) but has called them and us to purity, not impurity, to be holy as He is holy.  Paul is telling them and us that we have authority over our bodies and our flesh to abstain from sexual immorality, that we have the ability to control our passions and our body.

I hope you are living a victorious Christian life and if you are, it may come as no surprise that we live in a culture just like the early Church was absorbed in.  And like many of the early Churches we have brought that life-style or culture into our churches.  We do not need to report to you the numerous sexual immoralities that are brought forth on a weekly basis in the news, but those only cover politicians, Hollywood, and the pastors and staff at our local churches.  It is not a new thing, Paul confronted the Church at Corinth in chapter 5:1-2, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.  And you are arrogant!  Ought you not rather to mourn?  Let him who has done this be removed from among you.”  He is not calling the sexual immoral person arrogant, no God is calling us, you and me, His Church, we are the arrogant, we are not in mourning, but in denial.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice