I thought it was a proper way to end the Sabbath. Searching for that thing.
There sure was no type of religious legalism involved, and finding it sure
would be beneficial to the remainder of the Lord's Day. " I sure think we
all have way too much stuff! Oh, God where could it be?" I turned over a
few more mental stones until I went to the top shelf of my closet and pulled
down my down sleeping bag. "Eureka, the lost
has been found! I have finally found my thinking cap. After all these
months."
This week as we look at our next principle of Enterprise Symbiosis: Equilibrium is maintained through diversity.
I am going to need that apparatus, that we so seldom use in our modern age. If
I use mine properly, perhaps you can leave yours wherever it is you store it,
in case of emergency.
This week we will present this information in the typical format of our
modern age, whether that be on the lecture, or teaching, or preaching circuit.
First of all we need a problem that is really not the result of anything bad
you did, either you inherited it from your ancestry, or your environment. "Yes that will do!"
Then we need a simplistic answer that will make us all feel good about
ourselves, "Yes that will be fine also!"
Then we can close it with a shallow , "God
bless you all, go in peace." No I don't think so. After all I spent
a couple of hours searching for my thinking cap, I'm not going to let you off
that easily. I could have just sat on the couch and contemplated all the fun
things I should not do, or even just rested, these last couple of hours on this
day of rest.
We all suffer in this country from a type of disease, that basically came
about at the time of the founding of our wonderful nation. You haven't read about
it in the history books, because this information has just surfaced in some
dark stack of archives in a library at Oxford, Cambridge. That sinister plot
was contrived in the minds of three English church leaders of that era and life
long friends even though eventually they came to have quite different doctrinal
views, namely they were George Whitfield, John and Charles Wesley. While they
didn't really have a name for the malady, I have dubbed it "Itinerant Preacher's Circuits Disease"
or IPCD for short. Little did they know that
this little concoction they developed would infect the whole of western
culture. From there well meaning plan to bring renewal to the English speaking
church, they not only infected England, but also the colonies as well. I suppose
if one truly could presently obtain a sufficiently high view of Scripture and
the city of God, you could say that this little disease could have been one of
the causative agents in the industrial revolution and the rise of consumerism.
By now a few of you have caught on to the more common name for this condition, Revivalism.
"Now what does that have to do with
diversity?"
When you preach, as Whitfield did, to ten thousand people at a time, without
the aid of our electronic tools of our modern age, you must rely on showmanship
and a rather simplistic message. See that is just exactly what many of the
church and cultural religious showpersons (to be politically correct) like Tony
Robbins and a whole cast of other circuit riders still do. By buying the books,
tapes, putting your last dollar in the offering plate you too can be come part
of their success. The message is high on hype, emotion, fluff and hot air, and
short on specific substance. From there it might be a big step, but not a
difficult one, to a Big Mac and fries, and a new Lexus in the drive.
What this type of presentation does, is that makes us crave that "Extra
value meal, Super Size." Not a free lunch, but definitely a cheap one, and
not really good for you either. We have inherited IPCD when we believe that,
there is really a little more value, in the extra value. What there really is,
is (did you catch that double is) the profit in the pop. It all relates to
profit in the enterprise bottom line, or what really will become a significant
part of Bill Clinton's legacy.
We settle for IPCD and junk food when we could,
if the Bible be true, have a wonderful banquet, with tree ripened fruits, fresh
veggies and if you like, a well broiled and perfectly seasoned hunk of cow.
All that differs is really the choices we make. IPCD cheapens the churches
gospel message and intern, that effects society as a whole. You may have been
conditioned to believe that you are just a chunk of ground beef, a lump of
clay, a piece of dirt. But! But God in His Word says from that humble origin he
created man and woman in His image. Through Jesus Christ's sacrifice,
death,burial and resurrection you can be, not something, not somebody, but the
adopted son or daughter of the eternal living God. Through Him, and in Him, you
are truly an unique individual. Different from anyone else who ever lived.
With, if you choose to cooperate, a manifest destiny designed for no other, but
you alone. Unity in diversity. To be who you were really made to be. You can't
get there until you have been inoculated against, IPCD. And we all need
probably weekly booster shots. The only problems is many pastors and church and
civic leaders believe that IPCD is the disease of choice. A disease that needs
to be sought out and cultivated..
To put it another way, when you treat people
like a field crop, they respond accordingly. You are spreading IPCD.
When you treat them as articles of commerce, shoes and sweaters, they become as
such. We till, or manufacture people, God's highest creation, for egalitarian
results, equality of outcomes, rather than equality of opportunity. Much of the
agrarian aspects of the Bible then becomes truth as correctly stated, rather
than in its proper full context, ultimate truth. People are not sheep, or
wheat, or oxen as ultimate truth, we treat them as such, therefore those
projections are really dumbed down metaphors for limited simple minded
leadership, who stored their thinking caps behind their down sleeping bag. No
one is willing to stick up their head because they know that it will be chopped
off, but if you behave like a nice stupid sheep, we will get along just fine.
And then we bitch and whine about why no one will make or take any initiative.
So how do you know if you affect society as a IPCD disease carrier. The test
is really quite simple,Do your worldly friends and neighbors look at you as one
they can turn to in times of trouble, always having a listening ear, or do they
look at you as a religious bigot, no matter what religion or cultural
preference you expound. If the latter is true rather than the former, there is
a good chance you are infected.
Now for just a minute think about this amazing thought: No matter what you
have been through, and perhaps because of what you have been through, in Jesus
Christ all that junk can be washed away. If you were not all that important to
God, he could have just declared, "I am God and I declare, that all nice
people, who most of the time try hard to be good, will go to heaven." But
that is not the case, the case is: the only Son of God came to earth as a man,
and took your sin, upon himself, out of choice, not chance, His sacrifice was
accepted by His Father in propitiation, as complete redemption of your
transgression, His resurrection demonstrated in time and space, is the first
fruits of those who believe by faith alone, that they have been adopted into a
diverse community of persons, or personalities, truly unique and diverse among
themselves. It is through that principle of diversity that I believe that the
equilibrium of eternity, and to a lesser extent temporally, is maintained.
Now this principle can be demonstrated by energetic and diversity studies in
nature, or creation. But rather than go there, let us think for a moment that
you are cured from IPCD. Might not you first get excited and then seek out
those others who are excited also. Pentecostalism to a certain extent, is a
step beyond IPCD suffering. But while many remain there for the remainder of
their lives, others just find over time, the emotional exuberance falls into
entropy, and runs out of gas. Some move to more traditional churches finding a
dead and boring intellectual pursuit of making converts to the denomination,
that in most cases, predates any thought of IPCD. Eventually, a few think about what a wonderful gift they have received, and
through God's grace seek to move forward.. Here other parts of the church and
society should take over and help these diverse individuals, these eternal
personalities, to grow further. As we enter this millennium, those churches and
other enterprises equipped to handle that transition are extremely rare. Left
in that wilderness situation, the only solution is systematic Bible reading,
prayer and the determination to let God free you from the remaining bondage of
IPCD symptoms. To make you free indeed, while eventually leading you into
fellowship of others recovering from this malady.
While this was a somewhat light hearted look at a disease that effects and
affects our lives, there perhaps is that cause and effect possibility. Through
the ways of church leadership, society is indeed changed. Western culture is
transforming itself from a post industrial culture, into a new economy, perhaps
this is the time selected by God to change the church from its emphasis upon the
industrial revolutionary based revivalism, into a church based upon the more
God centered view of the Gospel, the justified, and work of the Holy Spirit. Romans 12:2 states: And do not be conformed to this
world , but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
I found my thinking cap and I am going to try to use it more often, with
better results. Now where was it you said you placed yours?
Well, I was right last week, along with some of the rest of you I wanted God
to run my life, and bless my life, in ways that I can fully understand. That
became quiet apparent to me early one morning last week, at which time I was
amazed just how stupid and sinful we can be sometimes. That makes it all the
more amazing that God would in any way love the created in a way that would
give us a part in his plans. About the same time I also realized that this is
perhaps one of the darkest times in my life. For those who are not familiar
with Scriptural darkness, perhaps Isaiah 50:10,11 will give you a brief
insight. Not wanting to succumb to the promise of verse 11, I have determined
to chill out for a while. In a couple of weeks I will have the money to move
somewhere just as it becomes the time that I cannot continue to work here. Just
one of those strange coincidences, that Christians should accept as common.
While there still seems to be a path that may lie ahead right now I am not
really all that sure it is the right, or God's path. "The perfect will of
God," to again quote Romans. Please intercede now for the patience I
desire right now and the gift of God's waiting, for I (we all) have the promise
that this too shall pass.