Every spring when melting snow and spring rains cause rivers
to flood, there is that inevitable news story about people rushing to place
sandbags around houses, stores, barns, and the like – in hopes of “stemming the
tide” so to speak of the flooding rivers. Sometimes that works as a temporary
solution, but the one thing you know without question is that at some point in
the future, the same routine will need to happen again.
In some places, engineers and other very smart people who
understand river basins and how they operate, build dams and reservoirs that
change how the rivers work – almost always succeeding at preventing the
repeated flooding that sandbags can only temporarily address. Changing the
nature of the river basin seems to work better than merely “stemming the tide”
of one particular incident of flooding. At least that is true if your goal is
to prevent the havoc created by flooding rivers.
For longer than I can remember, one of my life principles
has been something like this: “rules monitor behavior; principles transform
life.” The problem for us humans is that we can learn to obey the rules without
ever being transformed into the people God made us to be. At some level, this
is the very issue at hand when it comes to understanding law v. gospel. Had
“rules” worked in transforming humans, would it have been necessary for Jesus
to come and live among us, dying as the ultimate sacrifice for our inability to
keep the rules? Is this what John has in mind when he declares, “For the Law
came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17)
In Galatians 2:21 Paul suggests that “if justification comes
through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (His words, not mine!) Somehow
even though I have no real idea of what happens when this life is over, I am
pretty confident that when I arrive at the proverbial pearly gates, I shouldn’t
say either that “I’m here, but don’t need Jesus to get in” or “I hope it is ok
that I spent my whole life monitoring behavior instead of transforming lives.”
While my life principle noted above has a variety of
application points in life, for me, its primary point of application has been
to my own journey of faith. In that context, perhaps I should say “the
principle transforms life.” Because when it comes to the kind of faith
described in Scripture, the one principle that matters is Jesus. Period.
Of course in order for Jesus to be the principle upon which
my life is transformed, I have to know who He is. As Paul suggested to the
Philippians, “have this mind in you which also was in Christ Jesus.” (2:5) That
has to the best definition to be found when it comes to defining what a
disciple of Christ looks like. If I am going to truly follow Christ, I must
know how His mind worked and strive to make my own mind work the same way.
It is possible, isn’t it, for me, as a male in our culture
to obey all the church rules and end up with the appropriately modest approach
to dress, have the right kind of haircut, resist alcohol, tobacco, and illegal
substances, avoid tattoos and earrings, not allow my wife to have an abortion,
never be tempted to homosexual activity, or look at porn – and not be a
transformed person?
When our approach to the very challenging world in which we
live is reduced to such approaches, we are programming ourselves to fail. Many
reading the previous paragraph will protest – noting that isn’t how we do
business as kingdom ambassadors. For that I express gratitude and great
thanksgiving. But the simple reality is, assuming people like Dave Kinnamon and
Gabe Lyons are accurate in their surveys of how the church is perceived in our
culture, that is often how we are viewed. (unChristian,
You Lost Me, The Next Christians)
There certainly is a place in life for “stemming the tide.”
But as Jesus said to the disciples in Acts 1:8, our mission is to be His witnesses – to the ends of the
earth. Most of us are smart enough to learn to get around the rules. But Jesus,
well that’s another story – I can’t figure out how to get around Him.
Sandbagging will never change the world.
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