Cafeteria Christians
I have pretty much had a problem understanding some people… Ok. Perhaps the problem is even larger. There a large groups of people I don’t understand.
Women in general, teenage girls more specifically.
People that believe that the Government should take complete care of them.
I could go on and on. I guess that May be an indication of a problem on my part.
But when it comes to categories related to spiritual matters have trouble connecting. I have a blind spot because my understanding that there is a God is unquestioned.
So, I don’t understand people that consider themselves to be atheist. Atheist are people that can look around at this world and the abilities of human beings and can flatly say that there is no God, no Supreme Being or creator. The few that I have met, have their minds made up.
I guess I don’t consider myself to be that arrogant, to be able to just decide in my own mind that all we see and accomplish as people is all by accident, or a statistics miracle.
Another category of people would be called agnostic.
Agnostics – I can understand a little better, they believe that no one can be sure if there is a God or not. They don’t know that any person can interpret the information we have and come to a provable conclusion that there is definitely a God.
They seem to feel that we are all disqualified from knowing because there is no absolute proof of God…and some just refuse to make any personal investigation.
-- They seem to be a bit afraid to find out that there is a God.
With those two views identified I want to contrast them against Christians as a specific group. Christians believe in a God, a creator, a supreme deity that actually interacts with creation.
John Wesley the founder of what we call Methodism believed that the core of the Christians faith is alive and based on scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in a person’s personal experience and confirmed by reason.
Ultimately, Christians offer testimony to what we find in evidence all around us. In the traditions of early church writings and the evidence presented in the miracles of nature blended together with common since and intellect.
We in our own way find enough evidence of God to seed our faith.
--- There seems to be such a gulf between Atheist and Agnostics when compared to Christians. It seems that we might never be able to find any place to meet in the middle.
But I need to let you know that for the majority of Christians the distance is a lot closer than we would like to admit.
-- Quick show of hands, How many people Like going to a cafeteria, M&J’s or Ryan’s for a meal?
When you go for a meal at a place like that we have a lot of choice….
We get to choose what we put on our salad. Cheese, bacon bits, tuna salad. Beats, onions , hominy…Ranch dressing regular or light dressing…..
The choices go on… The guy at the carving station will slice off some roast beef and say is that enough…. No I think a little more….
Fish or liver…Fish please
Green beans or asparagus definitely green beans
For desert a sugar free jell-o square or ice cream with chocolate syrup and nuts….I will let you guess what I prefer…
-- I have a friend that spoke of his church denomination as being filled with Cafeteria Christians.
He was speaking about people that picked and choose what to believe.
Picked and choose what was right in their own minds.
I will take a good serving of Grace but skip over the whole judgment section.
I will take a double portion of Blessings but I don’t want any discipline…or Bible study.
I like the verse that God has plans to bless and prosper me but, I don’t like the verses that God wants me to be generous with what I have.
People …Christians that pick and choose believe that they get to choose what God is like and what He expects by ignoring the hard parts.
They believe that they are able to create God in their own image……Instead of the other way around.
-- Cafeteria Christians are in reality broad minded atheist.
They have a belief in God but they don’t live like He exists. They live for what they want and need. They live for their comfort.
They live fulfilling some of the descriptions that Paul offers to indentify the last days.
Most Christians e want enough of God to stay out of hell and enough of God to get into heaven
But NOT enough of God to change their lives.
-- Why, because they do not have a fear of God.
Broad minded atheist is a person that believes that there is a God but lives as if God does not exist.
As if God his no influence or power or expectations.
You are probably now thinking, uh O, I not know that this was Fire and Brimstone Sunday. And have started squirming a little on the inside.
Perhaps after a hard week you were hoping for God loves and blesses me no matter what Sunday.
If I had known I could have skipped this serving in the cafeteria, I could of brought my own brown bag of beliefs to the table.
Let me define what scripture tells us about the fear of God. For non believers the fear of God is a fear of judgment of God and eternal death or separation from God.
For the believer it is something different. A believer’s fear is reverence of God.
Hebrews 12:28-29, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."
Reverence and awe…are motivations for us to surrender our lives, our choices, to the creator of the universe. The more we get to know God the greater our respect and the more we want to change.
I read a story about a 5 year old boy that asked his father a “baby question”. It seems that he wanted to know how the baby in mommies tummy was able to eat. The day wanting to find a way to explain it in a way that his son could understand. Said, Well that is a pretty hard question. God made a special umbilical tube that connects to the mummy the feeds the baby. It is sort of like a straw. And the mommies body makes a kind of baby food for the child.
The boy’s eyes got a little bigger. The dad could tell there was another question on the way. He asked, so if the mommy eats pizza the baby eats pizza too…. Dad says will, yes I guess that is right…. The boy says, Wow God is so awesome……
A person that has not understanding of the awesome nature of God no real connection to the gift of Grace and the outpouring of love that God demonstrated in all of creation …does not have a fear… an understanding of how awesome God really is.
There are lots of people that Christians might consider to be awesome. The star on a professional sports team may inspire awe and respect.
Certain Boy bands are said to be awesome or not.
In my high school days the bans KISS or Chicago wowed people.
For years I had a local attorney that I used for property purchases and business matters. His wife is a school teacher that had my children in elementary school.
Renee and I really liked and respected this couple. We would say that they are some of our friends.
Not too long ago the husband was elected as a superior court judge. My relationship with the judges is pretty good, But I call them Judge or your honor when dealing with them.
But My friend asked me to keep calling him Jack when we meet in the hall.
He is in a position of power and position and has earned my respect…his choice of friendship makes we think wow…he is still a really nice man.
There are lots of people that as I get to know them better the more I respect them. Relationship love grows with exposure.
The same is true with God… the more time we spend getting to know him the more we see his character, his power, his glory, his nature, goodness .. the closer we come to god the more awe we feel about Him…
The more we realize that he actually loves us the more we more we have a desire to obey, to change in response to the relationship…
Not because we have to pleas him….but out of our desire to do so.
If we don’t fear God We don’t know God…..
In America 94% of the people will say that they believe in God. Even the demons believe in god and they have the since to tremble because with genuine fear because their relationship is as an enemy.
When we really know God, our fear, our awe, our respect for God increases… we will serve wholeheartedly without conditions…
However, Most Christians have conditions….
Some Christians will say, I am going to serve God but, I am still going to watch the sexy island shows on reality TV.
I am going to serve God but I am not going to give10% my hard earned money to the church.
I will serve God but I am not going to Africa.
I will serve God but …… is a sign of a person that has a limited awe of God.
In the past I have had times when I felt led to give some person a hand.
Maybe to take a homeless man to KFC and get him an 8 piece dinner.
The person was grateful and I felt good and I never missed the money.
There was a time when God told me that it was ok to only give to the church what I had in my wallet each Sunday instead of a tithe.
One Sunday, we were leaving after church for Vacation I had $160 in $20 bills when it came time for the offering…..I had this feeling that God said Got ay!
I had a choice keep the deal that God offered of only giving what was in my wallet out of respect.
I did not give it all to the offering that day….I has my excuses.
I gave about $40 bucks. I did not feel any joy.
It seemed that I had a $15 dinner and all the way up to 40 dollars but not $160 fear
I did not have enough awe or trust to keep the bargain that God has offered.
I had limits as how far I would go.
I will serve God but only up to a point….But I wonder what was it that god wanted with that money. I wonder who would have been blessed and what blessing I would have felt or received in return.
I have to tell you that I felt like I cheated God on that whole trip.
It took us 6 months to make up the difference in our giving. I guess my respect of God was intact but I was able to resist. It was my choice of how much I was willing to do for God. What I lost was the feeling of Joy that I felt when I responded freely.
There are people in scripture that demonstrate their fear God by showing obedience, Abraham was told by god to take his son to a mountaintop and to sacrifice him to God…
Folks, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son because he had a genuine fear of god based on a close relationship. He knew what god was like and how awesome he had been to him in the wilderness.
I can’t imagine that I would be able to reach…that level of trust based on my personal knowledge of God. I would be really abrade of my sanity or that satan was the one giving me the instruction.
I am pretty sure that no one I know could be obedient enough to give up any of their children either. I think that we would just say no way…
However, The greatest visible evidence of a fear of God is in complete obedience to what God asks for.
We live in a culture of cafeteria Christians that pick and chose what they believe and how they will serve. They want to do what they want to do. Cafeteria Christians are false Christians , what drives them to God is the consumer mindset that we tend to have in this world.
OK God, If you can fix my life and prove Yourself and my life gets better then perhaps I will serve you for a while.
If your marriage is fine you don’t need God. But if your marriage is in trouble then you want to make a deal for God’s help. God help me through this and I may be there for you.
If your finances are ok you don’t need God, but if you lose your job or the car has a major problem we turn to God and ask for help in fixing our lives.
If you are making all As in school you don’t need God but, suddenly hit a hard subject and struggle you may be asking god to help you pass the test.
Generally a cafeteria Christian say God fix my live and perhaps I can pay you back.
A cafeteria Christian is an open minded atheist because they feel like they can live any way they want. And Just ask for help when they have a need because they have little or no fear or respect for God..
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When we fear God we will be forever ruined. Ruined in a good way because god tears down the false understandings between Himself and us.
When we really know God we realize that everything that we thought of as important proves to be false.
The closer we get to God the more our lives change. The more respect and awe we will hold for God. We will feel as if we are more and more disqualified….But our God raises us up to send out to do his work. He feeds us what we need and empowers us in ways that make us effective.
The closer we are to God the more likely we free ourselves to drop the restrictions we place on our relationship with God.
The problem I fear for our church is that most of us haven’t been ruined yet. You haven’t really known him.
We are not at a point where we will tell God to send us any place and any time with no limits or resistance..
Do ya’ll know what keeps me awake on Saturday nights?
At some point in the future I am going to be asked to be accountable for you and your lives. It is a reality that I will have to account for you and it makes me shake and toss and turn because I fear that too many of you are broad minded atheist that treat God like a vending machine.
You don’t know if the small amount of faith will get a response or be lost in the machine giving you nothing tangible. So you spend the minimum.
Folks you can’t experience more of God without being more obedient and being ruined in what you believe about God.
It is clear that the world we live in is becoming more and more disobedient. Choosing to use God for a fix instead of a relationship.
If we are in the last of days we have almost reached the cash register and will be expected to pay for the meal you have chosen.
What is going on in your life? Are you using only going to god when you need something fixed or are you in a relation that challenges and ruins what you believe is important and being obedient to how God leads and wants to use you.
All Glory be to God!
In the next few weeks we will examine a some additional aspects of this limiting of our relationship with God
Today we will close with a musical meditation. While the music is playing think about your relationship.
The altar of God is always open for prayer and renewal. Use the next few minutes to move a little closer to God.
