Being a Christian is easy

Sometimes when you speak with other Christians it feels as though being a Christian must be the hardest thing in the world to be. Everybody will hate you and nobody will want to be your friend. There will be a whole lot of rules to follow that are near to impossible to keep and you have to spend all day saying you are sorry for stuff that everyone else is doing anyway. It’s really tough for the Christian.

What issues do Christians without a church face?

It can be hard being a Christian. There are many things to distract you and give you a reason to neglect your spiritual life. More recently there have also been many TV programmes that challenge the traditional views of Christianity.

What are the issues that Christians outside the church particularly face?

There are lots of people outside the church that don’t have direction

Today we are going to think about Matt 9:35-38. There are crowds of people who need Christ and who know it so we should ask God to send out workers to them.

Salt and Light

Overview

I’m going to be undertaking a series of bible studies related to the church. I want to know what the church should be about as Jesus saw it.

Matt 5: 13-16

In this passage (from the sermon on the mount) Jesus talks about his people being “salt” and “light”.

Both these things were very important in the ancient world – even more so that they are to us in the developed world today. No cupboard filled with fancy flavourings for food, no freezers for keeping meat fresh, no light bulbs or electricity to use.

Today we are always being encouraged to use less salt – and rightly so. But this is because it is so cheap and plentiful for us that it has become something that we take for granted and use too much of. Back then it was scarce and expensive, people were even paid a wage in salt at times.

Salt is also even more important in an area where the sun is hot and most work has to be done by hand.

So then when we talk of salt we should think of something that is wonderful. It adds taste to things, it makes life possible and even at times more pleasurable.

So then this is how God’s people should be to the world. We should make it a better place to be. We should add something that without us would be missing. We should even make sure we don’t lose our taste otherwise we become useless to the world and we will be rejected.

Isn’t this exactly was has happened in so many places to the church? It has lost it’s saltiness and is being rejected? Perhaps those of us who have chosen to live a Christian life outside of the regular church have discovered this truth earlier than some and so are just being more relaistic.

What does the church add to the world?

Then there is light. Now light of course is a guide. If you don’t need to know where something is you don’t need a light in the dark. Although for some people light is important for stopping fear – perhaps we can think about this another time.

If you have ever been camping you will know what a difference a little light can make to your experience. Ever tried finding your watch in a tent when its pitch black and you don’t have a torch to help? It’s a nightmare believe me (it was a luminous watch in case you were wondering why I wanted it without a light to see it by).

Does the church show the way?

The church  – and this is one of those reasons people often leave – is often accused of being hypercritical. We say something about how life should be lived but then do something as bad or worse in another situation.

I fear that the church has taken too often to shining the light only on itself and not as a beacon for the world. The church has shut the door and pulled the curtains before putting on the light – or to put it in Jesus’ words the light has been put under a bowl.

The church then should be sending out a signal to the world of where the world can find God. How sad the signal seems to be turning people away and they are glimpsing smaller lights and being attracted to them instead.

I believe that we may be outside the regular church but that does not make us outside of God’s church. As Christians – even if we are on our own – we still need to be living as we are light and salt to the world.

Christians judge me.

I was talking with a friend the other day who has made a lifestyle choice that is not consistent with Christian teaching (sorry to be a little vague here but I’m hiding the identity of the person concerned).

I was talking to them about church and wondering if they were going anyway at present. Their response was that they weren’t because they just couldn’t go through all that comment and judgement that church people do.

Now I might have defended the church at this point  – perhaps pointing out that the lifestyle they have chosen is in fact not what Jesus taught – but I think she was right.

I know that the bible teaches that this person has made a wrong choice. She knows this too. But she has made the choice to live as she does and she must be free to make that choice.

The problem now is that she feels excluded from the church – the very place she should be able to go to to help her make the right choices.

How does the church usually help people make choices? At best they will be patronising and whisper behind her back and at worst they will publically humiliate her.

What did Jesus do with sinners? Did he hold them up for public scorn? Did he whisper about them behind their back? Did he say “get away from me you are unclean!”? Of course not – he went and had a meal with them and called them his friends.

If the church was only for perfect people it would be empty and yet too often those who go see it as an exclusive club where some sins are ok (we just don’t mention those) and some sins are not allowed in here.

I’m not advocating a free for all where sin doesn’t matter – in truth I’m am very keen on personal holiness – but how do we get holy if the place we can meet with God and fellowship with others is barred to us because of a wrong choice we have made.

Sorry – I’m starting to rant.

Let’s get more serious about rejecting the sin but loving the sinner (with the emphasis on loving the sinner e.g. me – and you).

Perhaps if we put all the energy we expend on telling everyone how bad they are into telling people how much God loves them we might have full churches and I would be out of a ministry (good thing by they way).