When There Is No One To Stand In The Gap Series

OFF-TRACK: The American church is far from what we should be.

- I think this is largely beyond dispute, so I won’t belabor the point.

- Let me simply share one proof that I think is instructive.

- When you look at the early chapters of Acts, there are many people who are coming to know Jesus. The church is expanding quickly and exponentially.

- There are, though, still many who don't step across the line to belief. One thing that is striking about that, though, is what those outside the church thought of the church. They were impressed.

- Now, here I don’t mean the religious leaders. They were out to destroy the church, just as they were out to destroy Jesus. It was a power issue.

- But among the people the early church was held in high esteem. They saw how they loved each other. They saw how they cared for the poor. They saw the Godly fruit that their lives were producing and they admired it, even if they weren’t ready to invite Jesus into their own lives.

- That is not true today.

- When you look at public opinion polling, the American church is not admired by those outside the church. Instead, we are seen as being primarily political and lacking in love. It’s a consistent result over years of polling.

- Now, please let me say that I am not arguing that the ultimate test of the faithfulness of the church is what the public thinks of us. Our ultimate test is God’s opinion of us. And there are certainly some situations where the church might be perfectly faithful and be rejected by the public because of extenuating circumstances.

- Still, I think the point holds here. The polling reflects something real. And it doesn’t speak to a deficient understanding on the part of the public. No, it speaks to deficiencies on the part of the church in not being Christlike.

WHAT EZEKIEL TELLS US: Religious knowledge and authority is no guarantee of faithfulness.

- Ezekiel 22:26, 28.

- It would be nice to think that if you’re the resident religious authority that you are of course going to be faithful to God’s vision, mission, and calling. But that’s not true.

- Here we have a detailed critique of the ways that Israel wasn’t measuring up. There are also pieces here that have to do with the political leaders and the people, but for this sermon we have plenty to cover in just focusing on the religious leaders.

- This definitely includes pastors and ministers but I also want to include leaders within congregations as well. All those with religious authority in some measure or another.

- I want to unpack the details that the passage shares about how exactly they were off-track but let me start by asking a simple question: why?

- That is, why would religious leaders get off-track to the extent that is detailed here?

I’ll limit myself to four of the reasons.

a. People pleasing.

- Many people, even religious leaders, get focused more on making people happy than making God happy. It may be that the pastor feels his job is in jeopardy and he needs to soft-pedal certain truths. Or that congregation might be angry with him if he pursued what he feels is really God’s will.

b. King pleasing.

- Today, of course, we don’t have a king but the principle is the same. Back in Ezekiel’s day the priests might have wanted to say what was going to make the king happy. They don’t want to face exile, execution, or unemployment. - So when you know the king wants a certain thing, you find a way to “prove” that God’s will just happens to be the same as what the king wants.

- Today, at least in America, it manifests more as wanting to gain political or cultural power. We see that certain things get the approval from powerful people so we figure out ways to make that “God’s will” so that they will elevate us.

c. Wanting power.

- I alluded to power a moment ago in the political context but it can be much broader than that.

- It can be that pastors find that saying certain things gives them a bigger audience, so they find ways to prove that such statements are “God’s will.” It can be that we become pragmatists and presume that anything that brings in more people and tithes must be “God’s will.”

d. Cultural accommodation.

- We don’t like being the ones standing out by ourselves so when we see that certain Biblical truths are widely panned within the culture we find ways to make the Bible say something else. We make arguments about the church needing to stay “relevant” and presume that justifies what we do.