Sunday 03-11-19 Ascend part 20 Death of a Salesman.
Matt 7:13-20 MsgB 13-14 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention. 15-20 “Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.
So just to recap on where we were back in September, I decided to include verses 13-14 and Jesus’ teaching on the narrow v wide road of life. Chapter 7 is almost the ‘application chapter’ of Jesus’ sermon. We need to keep in mind that what we’re about to look at comes in this flow of Jesus’ instruction of what life looks like when we are trusting that the Kingdom way is the best way.
- Be on your guard.
15a “Watch out for false prophets.”
Part of that ‘wide and easy road’ that leads to destruction is what I would call in modern language; the spiritual marketplace. And it’s only getting bigger. By and large, in western societies churches like us are shrinking. Even those that are roughly the same size as what they were 10 years ago have effectively shrunk because in the same time the population of the surrounding area has grown by ‘x’ percent. The question is, why does this happen? The answers are many and varied but here’s one of my theories.
Risking an oversimplification; there is basically three historical reasons why people come or came to church. Reason 1: Cultural. that’s just what you do as part of the culture. Reason 2: Content benefit. This is a place where I get filled by the teaching and community to be able to go out there and survive another week in the real world. Reason 3: The presence of God. I need to get to church because God is manifest there in a particular way and I must worship him. (Psalm 122:1)
Now here we are nearly 20 years into the 21st century and the first no-brainer is that reason 1 is gone. It’s no longer the cultural thing to do. But my point is that whether you know it or not, Reason 2 is very quickly also now disappearing. There is a generation that is arising and has arisen (I’m not talking teens and 20’s but 30’s 40’s and even 50’s) who have realised that with the internet and the plethora or resources and connections that it puts at our fingertips, you no longer need to actually go to a Sunday service to get good spiritual content. There are Christian podcasts out there that are now forming ‘listening communities’ where people meet in someone’s house and simply listen in to the teaching whilst getting a fill of community. Why would you listen to me when you can download a sermon from Tim Keller? Why would you put up with internal church conflicts when you can download an app on your phone that links you with like-minded Christians that occupy the same theological camps as you do?
There’s some news, good news and bad news to all this. The news is, Churches that focus all their engagement on content (programs, teaching, stuff to do) rather than sharing the love of Jesus with the community and telling it like it is are heading for oblivion. The good news is that although most western churches will shrink, more and more, the people that are left will be the remnant that are there for God and God alone. Because reason 3 is the only reason left for church attendance that cannot be extinguished by culture or resources.
But finally, we come to the bad news: Anyone can YouTube. Anyone can podcast. Anyone can do Facebook live broadcasts. You don’t need to write a book anymore to influence people. You can sidestep the vetting and accountability processes of having to go through accreditation, or actually get a publishing contract, or have a board of elders watching over you.
So Jesus, bursts into the contemporary and also online world and says: “Watch out.” As in, part of your Christian discipleship is to learn and exercise discernment. It’s never been easier to start a cult! It’s never been easier to say a lot, but not really be known by anyone. Even within a church context. In a social atmosphere that focuses on how many friends you have rather than the depth of those friendships, the words of Jesus addresses us right where it matters.
- In Sheep’s clothing.
15b They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
So we’ve talked about the need to exercise discernment due to the relational atmosphere that we occupy, but this is further compounded in our context by, frankly, marketing. I used to work in retail. I job was to sell surf wear to unsuspecting people that wanted to be cool. I did pretty well at my job. Why? Because when folks came in with their kids, I didn’t talk to the squirming 14 year-old about how cool the pair or quicksilver jeans were. I fact I ignored them and rather spend my time talking to the mum or dad about how good a quality they were and how long they would last and how I had a pair myself. I convinced them that I was on their side, when in fact, I was just trying to meet my own sales target. They were a means to my end. I was the wolf. Wolves are essentially consumers. They will consume others in order to consume more. They are of course, extremely agreeable when you first meet them. It’s all part of the marketing.
It’s easier to do in ministry than you might think. When I got into ministry, I realised how easy it was for just about everything a church does to become another ‘sales target’. How many ministries we’re running, attendance, how slick the service is, how big an event is; you name it. Idols are not bad things, but good things we make into everything and then eat people in order to achieve them. We’re one idol away from turning into a wolf.
- The path to discernment.
16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Jesus’ audience knew a heck of a lot about fruit. One of the most important trades in the 1st Century Judean economy was, frankly, wine. Bad fruit makes bad wine.
The simplest way to summarise what Jesus says here is simply this: Look (or taste) before you listen to someone. This actually happens out there every single day of the week. Why are people in certain positions asked to write references for others? Because employers have long since realised that just because someone interviews well doesn’t mean they are the right fit. The problem is, they haven’t had their eyes in the same room as that person for that last x amount of years, so they need testimony from one or more people who have been around them. We as a church require a spouse or family reference before one can be nominated for eldership because frankly, eldership begins at home.
But what about the times that we’re not following some defined recruitment policy. What does it mean to look? I believe it is three things (at least for now): Time, Patience, Contemplation. Don’t entrust your spiritual life to brand new believers; it’s not fair on them. Don’t entrust your spiritual life to people you’ve never met. Moreover, and related, don’t get all your spiritual advice from people that haven’t seen much of life. That includes me. One of the reasons why we do testimony Sundays here, is because the more inexperienced the senior pastor is, the more diverse and experienced other voices we need to balance that out.
I rely a lot on researching stuff from varied sources, delving into historical backgrounds and I try to best translate the text of Scripture into our context but there’s many points of application which I’m just going to come up short on. If you’ve been walking with God for 20-30 years and so on, you are crucial, utterly crucial to the universal mission of God. There is a call on your life that modernity has done it’s best to extinguish. The wonderful call of God is upon you to be a father or mother of someone in the faith. If you are an experienced Christian this morning, ask yourself Who am I mentoring? If you prefer a different term: discipling. If you don’t know where to start, talk to Max S.
Deep relationships take time. Discernment takes time. Modern Christianity in all its busyness is sadly lacking in the ability to simply sit and contemplate. To go through the motions of drawing out truth from not only the text of scripture but also often complex circumstances, situations, and attitudes. Some people’s fruit is ‘low hanging’ others take a lot more effort to get to. Still, others have really big impressive green trees but with no fruit. Recognition demands an effort of contemplation.
I have always loved the last words of Paul’s letter to Timothy: The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. 25 In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever. In other words, it’s possible that people that look really good simply have not been found out yet. Moreover, remember that the person you’re tempted to write off, may have done some wonderful things that you’re not aware of.
- An important correction.
Before we finish, a note of caution that foreshadows next fortnight; when we use the word ‘fruit’, we so often use it in the sense of productivity and achievement. But as we’ll expand upon in two weeks’ time, ‘Fruit’ is a lot more about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith and so on than it is about great works for God so to speak.
- The Good Shepherd.
I’d like to close this week with the words from a movie by the name of ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. Set in during the 12th century Christian occupation of Jerusalem and the subsequent conquering of it by the Muslim army of Saladin it follows the story of a French blacksmith, come knight, come baron come servant of the king; Balien. The King was King Baldwin the 4th who was known as the leper king and not expected to live long due to his disease. Soon before his death the Christian King who can see that the templars are simply waiting for him to die so that they can take over, says the following to his Knight and servant Balien over a game of chess:
“When I was sixteen I won a great victory. I felt in that moment that I should live to be one hundred, now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end really, or what hand will guide us there. A King may move a man, a father may claim a son. That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played, or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone. Even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say “but I was told by others to do thus” or that “virtue was not convenient at the time.” This will not suffice. Remember that.”
“Watch out,” said the Lord Jesus. Why? Because he is the good shepherd. Because no one cares more about you and me and our eternity than Jesus. That’s the best news of all.