Dying To Fit In? Is The Church Losing Its Distincitves To Be Embraced?

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

 Jesus says:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet

I have heard some pretty good explanations on the words of Jesus here. Salt was used as a preservative and an additive for flavor. But what good is salt if it loses its flavor, its saltiness? It is as good as sand, to be trampled under the foot of man. I want to address a disturbing trend. The trend of wanting to fit in.

When we read through Acts we see something that is quite eye popping. Wherever these Christians went people noticed. They didn’t notice because they were on soapboxes screaming how wicked sinners are (though I am not saying that this is wholly unfruitful). They didn’t notice because these Christians were successful business men and women who had big houses and nice cars because of they were Christians (quite the contrary actually) and they didn’t notice because they were really smart people who could argue with the best of them (much like the apologetic groups attempt to prove, though again I am not saying they are unfruitful).

Nope I think there were three areas in which they made a mark on those around them and they are: 1. Their love shown forth by their diminishing impartiality, meeting of real needs and desire to fellowship with one another, 2. Their upright moral behavior even the midst of adverse suffering and 3. Their unwavering committment to the Gospel message. I will not elaborate on these and I don’t think this is exhaustive.

However, today more than ever it seems as if the Church wants to fit in. We want to be embraced by the academia. We want to be recognized as successful by the business world and finally. We don’t want to look like religious fanatics who don’t have any fun. And it seems that we are compromising our integrity to fit in.

For example there are those who reject the notion of the miraculous in scripture in Christian Academics, yet they say they are Christian. This is foolishness. The entire book of Acts, many of Paul’s letters and Hebrews (written by Paul?) even talks about the power of God that accompanied the message of God. We might as well, rip out 80% of our bibles and use it to shine our mirrors, if the miraculous didn’t happen the Gospel is most likely a lie.

Next there are many preachers (even so called conservative ones) who we find basing the success of the “ministry” on the financial status and acceptance of their local gathering. You go to websites and it doesn’t talk about how deep the commitment is to Christ and one another, it talks about the church had 100 people now they have 10 thousand! Who cares? Jesus doesn’t. If so Jesus had the greatest fail rate ever. Not to mention Paul’s apostolic ministry would be unacceptable as many of the churches were relatively small compared to what we call successful today. Other preachers and Christian singers talk about how blessed they are because of what they have, not who they belong to. It isn’t enough to have fellowship with Christ, you must also have everything the world has and again this goes for “conservative” leaders also. Many of the so-called financial ministries (Crown to name one) talks about “being the head and not the tail” and bases that off of financial position as if middle and upper middle class is a sign of God’s favor!

Finally, we see that churches now want to march with Gay right activist, or have a platform so that they can be in the know of the latest political figure. Other Christians often quote “judge not” in the hope of shielding their moral obligations. We laugh at the coffee table about things that are unholy, we join conversations that show paritality “white people do this” or “black people do that” or “mexicans do this”…. We ignore the mariginalized and outcast and we want to sit at the table with those with honorable names (I once heard Eddie Long say “I am not like these little pastors, I have been invited to White House, I know people” as if that has some value).  While James scoffs such desire and rebukes such impartiality!

Lets fit in with Jesus and His message! We are not to be purposefully abrasive or attempt to bring unneeded attention to ourselves because of our “religion”. However, we only live unto and for Christ. We are slaves of the living Savior who now dictates what we are to value and how we are to live. Our inconsistency and desire to fit in has not brought the world under the submission of Christ it has begin the have the world permeate the Church thus taking away its saltiness. Paul says “the cross is folly”. Not only is the message folly but what the message calls us to is folly to the world. Lets not be embarrassed to look like fools!