This is How We Blew It
Texts: Luke 18:8; 2nd Cor. 13:5; James 2:14-26 (and others)
By: Kenny McKinley
(Read Texts and open with prayer and thanksgiving)
As I was praying and considering what to preach here today, I considered the fact that I was going to be in a church where I didn’t know any of the congregants, and so initially I thought, “Well maybe I’ll preach an evangelistic sermon.” But then I thought, well I’m not some great, well known evangelist, so most if not everyone who is here today is probably a regular church goer, most if not all of you are probably members of this church and so I continued to pray and think about what I should preach. And then I thought, “What does the church in America, as a whole need?” because after all; the whole, is simply made up of its parts, and this church is definitely one of the parts.
And so the title of my sermon this morning is, “This is how we blew it.” I have a lot of Christian friends; conservative Christian friends, who are wringing their hands about the upcoming election. I get the AFA online newsletter as well as mailings from Coral Ridge Ministries, the Eagle Forum, and others, and they are all upset with the three leading candidates that are running for our nation’s highest office. Because all three of the leading candidates, whether republican or democrat, all three of them have track records of being either for, or not against abortion and same sex marriage. Then you look at the other things that are going on in our world, and in our nation, and all of these things are a cause of concern for Christians. And so what I see Christians doing is mobilizing, sending money to this organization, or that organization, so that the Christian agenda can fight against the secularist agenda in the courtrooms and in the halls of government. And I’m here to tell you this morning… this is how we blew it.
No where in the Bible does it say that Christians are to change the culture through legislation. You don’t change a culture through politics and the court system.
And I’ve heard countless pastors, evangelists, and teachers stand behind pulpits, before congregations, and crowds, and classrooms and they say something like, “It all began in 1963 when Madalyn Murray O’Hair had prayer banned in public schools. Then it got worse in 1973 when Roe V. Wade legalized abortion, and now something like 50 million babies have been aborted. And now congress is discussing whether or not to legalize same sex marriage.” And they say, “The ACLU, liberal judges, homosexual activists, and atheists are destroying our nation from within, and so we have to rise up against them and fight them in the courts and elect politicians who are Christians, and stop this godless agenda from progressing any further.” I’ve heard Christian leaders say these sorts of things over and over, you probably have as well. Heck, I’ve even said them myself. And this is how we blew it. Because for the past 45 years we’ve had Christian leaders saying these things and advocating these things, but where does the Bible teach these things?
There is no doubt that our nation is spiritually and morally bankrupt. But it’s not the ACLU’s fault, its not the liberal judges fault, its not the homosexuals fault, it’s not the atheists fault. It’s OUR fault. I’ll say it again… IT’S OUR FAULT!
God’s method of changing a culture is the gospel. The apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it (IT meaning the gospel) is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.” When a person who is not a Christian acts, and behaves, and lives in a certain way, they are simply living in accordance to their nature. They have not been born again, they do not have a new nature, and so they are going to practice sin, they are going to sin and be hostile towards Christianity, and do what they can to attack it. It’s their nature to do so. And we seem to have failed to understand that the way to counter these attacks is not through the court system, its not through politics, it’s through the preaching of the gospel. And before Jesus left this earth He gave us a command to go into all the world and preach that gospel. My family and I recently moved to where we live now, and we were visiting nearby churches in order to find a new church home. One Sunday we went to a particular church and it just so happened that they were having an evangelist/juggler at this church. It was very entertaining and he had a very good message, but one of the congregants of that church asked us if we were attending on that Sunday because of the juggler. My wife and I looked at each other and then at the nice lady that asked us the question and we told her that we didn’t even know that the juggler was going to be there. Now I want you to understand that this particular church is only a few miles from where we live, yet we never saw any advertisement, we never saw any posters, no one from that church had come out and invited us to come, there was nothing. I don’t know how a church expects to reach its community using those methods. We have been commanded to GO into the world, not sit back and hope they decide to come to church. Now part of the reason that Christians don’t go is because of fear of persecution, part of the reason that they don’t is because the pastor has not properly equipped them to do so… Yes, Ephesians chapter four tells us that one of the pastors’ jobs is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, and some pastors have failed to do that. And that is how we pastors have blown it. But there is another reason people in churches don’t go into all the world and preach the gospel, and that’s because there are some people in the churches who are not Christians at all; which brings me back to my texts I just read awhile ago. “When the Son of Man returns will He really find faith?” “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” “But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?”
Turn with me to Matthew 7:21-26 (read). What Jesus tells us in this passage is that there are people who think that they are Christians but they aren’t. They believe that they are, they even called Jesus Lord, but the sad reality was that He NEVER knew them. They had never been in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
So again I say, the pitiful state of our nation today is not the fault of non-believes. It’s the fault of Christians. Christians who have allowed people to come into the church and practice what I call, easy believism. Christians who have told people, oh if you say a little prayer, or if you get baptized, or if you join the church, then that’s all you need to do in order to be a Christian. In reality there is nothing we can “do” to become a Christian. It’s by grace… not of works… it is God “doing” for us, not by our “doing” anything. God’s grace is what saves lost sinners. By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But the thing is that there should be some evidence of it. The great protestant reformer, Martin Luther said that indeed it was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but that “the faith that saves is never alone.” That’s the same thing that James tells us, and Paul would’ve agreed with him. It’s the same thing that we just read Jesus saying, “Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and DOES them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock…” and so if you are claiming to be a Christian you should have something to back up that claim. Some sort of evidence. The Bible calls it fruit.
Also in Matthew chapter seven, just prior to the passage we read, Jesus tells His listeners that you can know a false prophet by their fruits. The Bible tells us that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 1st John tells us over and over again that a born again Christian will not lead a lifestyle of sin. When a person gets saved, they may sin from time to time, but they will not go on living a lifestyle of practicing sin. Again it’s a matter of ones nature. A sinner sins because he is a sinner. He doesn’t become a sinner because he sins. He sins because it’s in his nature to do so. A righteous man, in other words a Christian, will live righteously, because they have a new nature.
This is how we can test ourselves to see whether or not we are in the faith.
But it is my contention that we have churches today that have more than their fair share of people who believe that they are Christians, but in reality the Lord has never known them. They have never been to the foot of the cross, they have never repented of their sins – because they can’t their sinful nature won’t allow it; they have never received Jesus Christ as not only Savior, but also as Lord. And so what we have are apples covered in orange peels. On the outside they look like oranges, they hang around with other oranges, but inside they are really apples. Jesus said it this way, “on the outside they are whitewashed tombs, they may look nice and neat, and are a spectacle to behold, but inside they are full of dead mans bones.” In other words, a grave is a grave, no matter how fine the architecture or how nice the paint job, and a sinner is a sinner, no matter how “churchy” they appear. And it is the churches… the Christians fault. We have allowed this to take place. Because the standard for success of a pastor today is to have a mega church, to sell two books a year, and to pull down six figures, and maybe… if he’s really successful, he could sit on the board of a prestigious Christian college. But again; we’ve traded the world’s standards for God’s standards. (If you can’t say amen say Oh My!)
Christians have allowed this to happen, and the more worldly the church has become, the less effective it has become in the world. And so when we have churches full of people who are not born again, we are going to have churches full of people who believe they are Christians but are not acting like Christians, and not fighting our battles as Christians should. Rather than putting on the full armor of God, going into prayer, and going into all the world and preaching the gospel, church members are instead putting on their best business suit, hiring the best lawyer their tithes can buy, and going into the litigation process and the political arena and trying to change the culture in a secular way rather than a spiritual way. And it’s no wonder things seem to be getting worse rather than better.
Now please don’t misunderstand me; Christians should be concerned about abortion, and Christians should be concerned about same sex marriage, and Christians should be concerned about the anti-Christian movement we see within our country. But if Christians would’ve been doing what they should’ve been doing, and if Christians would’ve been spiritually where they should’ve been spiritually in 1963 and 1973, or 83’, 93’ 2003, I believe a lot of those things would’ve never even taken place. The moral outrage would’ve been so great, that even if a person would’ve thought about them, they wouldn’t have dared to bring them up, and even if they had dared to bring them up, the Supreme Court would’ve never dared to hear the case.
But with absolutes being replaced with relativism, and morality being replaced with hedonism, our enemy becomes emboldened. Because without a strong Christian influence, without Christians sharing the gospel with their neighbors, without Christians living in an upright and moral manner, but instead living just like the rest of the world; without Christians doing what the Lord has command them to do, there is no counter to the world view being presented in our public schools, and secular universities, and by our politicians, athletes, and entertainers. And I believe that the Bible teaches us that things like abortion and same sex marriage are not two of the causes of our troubles, but that they are two of the results of our turning away from God.
Turn with me quickly to Romans 1:18-32 (read).
Look again at vs. 26, “For this reason…” what reason? For man not glorifying God even though they knew He existed and was responsible for creation and all things, for man being unthankful, for exchanging the truth of God for man made lies. For this reason God gave them up. Verse 28, “and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind…” So if you really wanted to get down to it, you could say that America began its downward spiral into immorality not in 1963, but in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his origin of species. That was the same year that John Brown raided the Harpers Ferry Armory which some claim was a precursor to the Civil War. It was also the same year that a great geomagnetic solar super storm caused the Northern Lights to be visible as far south as Cuba. It was also the same year that solar flares were first observed on the sun by English astronomer Richard Carrington. Talk about your signs and Wonders in the heavens. But the point I’m trying to make is that the sin and immorality that we see in our nation and in our world today is the result of man’s turning away from God. Darwin gave man an out, and man said, “You know what God? I’m not going to believe in you anymore because Darwin says we came from some sort of ectoplasmic goo.” And the less society likes to retain God in their knowledge, the more God removes His restraining grace, and the more our debased minds and sinful nature are allowed to have free reign over our thoughts and actions. And so what we see today is the result of man telling God that we want to do things our way.
So maybe your sitting here today and your saying, “Ok Kenny. But what can we as Christian individuals and as a church do about all of this?”
2 things: First of all you can do what Paul recommends in 2nd Corinthians. Examine yourselves; test yourselves to see whether or not you’re in the faith. If you claim to be a Christian and are living a lifestyle of on-going sin then you’ve got a real problem.
Alexander the Great once had a soldier brought before him for a court martial. The soldier stood before his commander and was very afraid. “What is your name” the soldier was asked, “Alexander sir” The soldier replied. The great military leader faced the soldier and said to him, “You either change your name, or change your conduct.” (Sermon Central) So test yourself, see if there is evidence to back up your claim. If not then you need to receive Jesus. If so, then there is something else you may want to do. 2nd Chronicles 7:14 says, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” You notice who this passage of Scripture is addressed to? It’s not addressed to the atheists, it’s not addressed to the anti-Christian activists. It’s addressed to God’s people, who are called by His name. He says we’ve got to humble ourselves and we’ve got to pray. Prayerlessness equals pridefulness. He says we’ve got to seek His face, and turn from OUR wicked ways. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And the He’ll hear from heaven and heal our land.
It’s our fault; no matter which way you look at it. We Christians have either been doing what we shouldn’t have, or we haven’t been doing what we should’ve been doing. Now maybe you’re sitting here today and you’re saying to yourself. “You know what. I have examined myself, and I am a doer of the Word, and I’m not doing what I shouldn’t be, and I am doing what I should be.” If so then disregard this message. You are to be commended and held up as an example for others. But if not, then fall to your knees before the Lord, humble yourself and pray, turn from your wicked ways and seek the Lord while there is still time.
And please let us understand that the state of our nation and our world is the result of our lack of effort and conviction.
ALTER CALL
