Should the Church Teach Morality?

Morals and rules are not popular at all today. What could be more passé and old fashioned than telling people there is a right way to live and a wrong way to live? People do not want to be told what to do. We would rather determine what is best for ourselves than to be held to some universal standard. This is at the heart of our culture’s relativism and ultimately its decay—we are allergic to claims of universal morality. 

I expect this line of thinking from those who are outside of the church; it is after all, the dominant belief in our world. Its popularity is driven by the fact that our hearts are sinful and it is appealing for us to set ourselves up as mini-gods who determine what is right. None of this is surprising, but what is surprising is how so many in the church, even the conservative and reformed church, who also want to throw out morality. It has become hip and trendy to rip into teaching morality within the church.

I often come across arguments the reason why so many youth leave the church, and why so many adults don’t like the church,  is because it is just a bunch of rules. Some within the church respond by deemphasizing the teaching of rules and morality. We shouldn’t teach morality, rather we should focus on grace and on Jesus. I have nothing against grace or Jesus, obviously, yet can we really understand these important things without a proper understanding and emphasis on morality?

Below are three responses to the argument the church should minimize its teaching of rules or morality and should instead focus on grace and Jesus.

1. Why do we even need grace? I love grace. Without grace I am totally lost. The grace of God is central to the Christian faith, but what is grace and why is it needed? Grace is the free gift of God to rule-breakers stuck in immorality and sin. Without knowing the rules of God’s moral code, we cannot know our need for God’s grace. The Law of God is a grace he has given to us to show us our sinfulness and our need for a Jesus Christ. Moreover, the grace God gives to his people is not just a grace for the future; it also changes their hearts so that they live holy, moral lives right now. The fact our culture doesn't like morality and doesn't see the need for it, means we must teach it if they are to understand their need for grace.
    
2. Why did Jesus need to die? It is no shock that Christ is central to Christianity. But why did he come? Why did he need to die? When Adam and Eve chose to sin, to break God’s rules, death was introduced into this world. The wages of sin is death. Christ came to die for our sins to pay the wages we owe. Without knowing about the universal morality of the Creator God, there is no need for the sacrificial death of Christ. You simply cannot rightly understand the gospel without knowing something of the moral perfection of God and our rebellion against it.  
    
3. Jesus taught rules, commands, and morals as central to being one of his followers. One only has to read any of the gospels to see  Jesus taught a lot about what is right and what is wrong. He taught of our need to love others and God, our need to forgive others, our need to holy. He made moral statements like this, “If you love me you will keep my commands” (John 14.15). Obeying Christ’s commands, his morality, is what we are called to do. You cannot love him without obeying his rules. Teaching obedience to the commands of Christ is also commanded to the Church by Christ in Matthew 28.18-20, “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Jesus has commanded us specifically to teach others to obey everything he has commanded. This is a command to teach his rules and the moral code he taught. In order for the church to be faithful, it must teach these things.

Generations often overreact and overcorrect from the generation before. While many in the past focused in too much on morality to the exclusion of Christ, many in my generation want to focus on Christ to the exclusion of his moral teaching. It is best to avoid both of these errors.

The world does not like much hearing about rules, but is that surprising? Instead shaping our message according to what the world wants to hear, we should listen to the command of Christ to teach people to obey everything he has commanded. To some this will appear to be nothing more than death, and to others it will bring life (2 Cor. 2.15-16). The outcome is not ours to determine, rather we are called to be faithful to our mission. Our message, rather than conforming to the culture, is to challenge the culture by calling it to repentance and faith in Christ.

God has a moral code which reflects his perfect righteousness revealed chiefly in the person, work, and teachings of Jesus Christ. All will be held account to that standard. While the church must never only teach rules and morals, it certainly must not teach less than that. The message of the church is about the grace Christ bought for his people. This impacts every facet of life, especially how we are to live. It is precisely because we have a real moral need, that Jesus is so great. He met that need which we could never meet, and when we come to him he transforms us so that we can start to grow in obeying him.

When we preach grace, the gospel, and Jesus morality is essential to being faithful to what God has entrusted us with. Yes the church must teach morality, but it must so in light of Jesus Christ. 

Looking in All the Wrong Places

If you have ever lost something, then you know how frustrating it is to try to find something when you have no idea where to look.  Knowing where to look for something is of vital importance to success. In spiritual matters knowing where to look is even more important. Satan knows the value of misdirection as a tool to lead people astray. His misdirection is furthered by our own spiritual blindness apart from God. 

Our blindness and tendency to look in the wrong places works itself out in two ways today—looking for God and looking for who to blame in the wrong places. How you answer these questions reveals a lot of what you believe about God, yourself, the world, and salvation. It should come as no surprise that the popular answers in our age stand in stark contrast to Christian belief. 

Looking For God Within

In his book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, David Wells tells of the rise in popularity of spirituality in our relativistic world. While this may sound like good news for Christians, this new thirst for spirituality is decidedly anti-Christian. Wells demonstrates that most people in the west believe spirituality and connection with God comes from within, not from external revelation like Scripture. In other words, if you want to have a relationship with God, if you want to know him, all you have to do in turn inward and get to know yourself better. Salvation comes by looking within and becoming more self-actualized. The spiritual search begins and ends with the self. 

According to this spiritual search we find God in ourselves. By turning inward we search for an experience of a spiritual nature, whatever that means, which confirms that we are connected to God naturally. Basically we are one with God.  Each of us can have our own subjective experiences with “God” within ourselves which no one is allowed to judge.  Of course, when we turn within to find God we are in fact making ourselves into gods. It is our intuitions, our experiences, our desires, and our imaginations that come to define who God is. In the end, we have turned the self into our idol to be worshiped by ourselves. 

The God of Scripture, though intimate with his creation, is separate from it. Moreover, mankind is separated from God by our sin. If you hope to find God by turning to yourself, who happens to be a sinner, you will never find God.  The God who is there, is found outside of us. He is an objective reality, a personal God who really does exist. If we want to know him, it cannot come by you reaching up to him; rather, it comes by him reaching down to us in grace. This is done chiefly in the person and work of the God-man—Jesus Christ. If you hope to find God by turning inward, you will never find him because you are looking in the wrong place. 

Looking Outside for the Problem

It should come as no surprise when we make ourselves into mini-gods, that when we look for the chief problem in mankind that it must be outside of ourselves. After all, if we are divine, we cannot be at fault. Paul Tripp points out this reality in his work, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, that when something goes wrong we are quick to assign blame anywhere but with ourselves.  When we get angry it is someone else’s fault we are angry. When we treat someone with disrespect, it turns out it is their fault because they were mean to us first!  Where do we look for the source of our problems? Externally we are told. If we are gods, the problems must come from the outside. 

The flavor of the day is that everyone is a victim and nothing is anyone’s fault. This clashes headlong with the testimony of Scripture. Jesus tells us we do what we want to do and our actions reveal our hearts (Luke 6:43-45; Matt. 23:25-26; Matt. 6:19-24). What Christianity asserts is that our chief problem is our individual sin as sinners. My chief problem is my sin. Your chief problem is your sin. We are sinners and we must start our search of what is wrong by humbly looking within. Not only am I the problem, I cannot be the solution. I need someone greater than myself. 

Looking in the Right Places

We look within to find God and we look outside of ourselves to assign blame. Both are futile searches because they are looking in the wrong place. We are told to find God within and to always assign blame elsewhere.  Scripture’s message to us is that we are full of ourselves and that we are digging in the wrong field. 

These searches also display our extreme self-righteousness.  We make ourselves primary to accessing God thus making ourselves out to be divine. Then we arrogantly shift all blame away from ourselves. We have a very high view of ourselves, one God does not share.

The gospel of the age says I can act first by reaching inward to find God. But the gospel of Jesus Christ shows us God must act first, he must grant us grace. We cannot find him by searching within, there is only sin, blindness, and death found within.  We must know God on his terms, as he revealed himself to us in his Word and in the person of Christ. He must reach down to us and reveal himself to us and grant us eyes to see. 

The Bible tells us that we must look within to find the problem. We are sinners, not gods. We need a savior who is God. This is what Jesus did. He came as the God-man to save us. And his call to us is not about self-realization, but for us to repent and believe in him (not ourselves). 

We must flip the script. We are to look within to see our sin and thus our need for a savior. Then we must turn and look outside of ourselves to the God of the universe. Only in him is there salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ.  He has revealed himself to us, and he has told us where to look. In order to find God we must first realize we are not him and that we are the problem. 

Knowing Our Enemy

In our Adult Sunday School Class we are looking at how to grow in personal holiness. This past week we discussed sin—its origin, nature, and characteristics. Why would we study what sin is and how it impacts us?

First, because it is wise to know your enemy. Growing up playing basketball our team would watch tape of our opponents to learn their tendencies and plays. This would give us an idea of how to defend against them and hopefully beat them. The same is true of sin. If we understand how it seeks to lead us astray we can prepare ourselves for it.

Second, when we look at the pervasiveness of sin it should drive us to the gospel. Left to ourselves, with our sinful nature, there is no hope to defeat sin at all. This foe is beyond any of us, so we must run to Christ with everything we have. In him alone is there hope for salvation.

Below is a list of some of the characteristics of sin we covered. As you read through this list it should be become evident how much you need someone greater than yourself. We are sinners by nature and by choice and this means we are already impacted by these effects of sin:

Sin is hostility toward God

• Since sin is defined as a failure to meet God’s law and his character, sin is thus hostility to God
• Sin is cosmic rebellion, it is nothing short of shaking our fists and spitting in the face of the one who made us and sustains us

Sin is also hostility toward others

• When we sin against others we are showing hostility toward them
• When we choose to sin against someone we are choosing that sin over loving that person

Sin is deceptive

• Satan is the great deceiver and sin operates by blinding us to truth, to reality, to ourselves, to others and to God
• Sin promises us so much like satisfaction, identity, fulfillment, joy, life, freedom but it simply cannot deliver on those promises
• This deception is powerful because it appeals to our desires and our fallen nature

Sin is death

• God is the source of life, he even sustains the lives of sinners, but sin is opposed to the very source of life
• Sin promises life, it promises that we will be like God, but it only delivers death
• The wages of sin is death, but even now those in Adam, those not in Christ, are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2.1)
• In the end sin leads to eternal death of body and soul in hell
• This means when we choose sin we are choosing death over life
• Is it no wonder that this world and culture is marked by death?

Sin is slavery

• Sin promises freedom but it leads to bondage
• Jesus says in John 8:34, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
• Since we all sin, we all are slaves to it 
• Only Christ can free us from this slavery

Sin is anti-human

• Man was made in the image of God and we were at that time without sin
• In the new creation we will be without sin made in the perfect image of the Son of Man
• This means the initial and final state of mankind is sinless
• Far from giving us an identity, or a purpose, sin actually destroys the purpose humanity was created for—to be in relation with God
• Sin is therefore anti true humanity

Sin is madness

• Sin does not make any sense and it does not align with the reality of God
• This makes sin crazy as  it fights against the basis of all reality
• As one goes down the path of sin, a person or a culture, their madness and craziness only increases
• So much so that God will even hand them over to it as a judgment (Rom. 1-2)

Sin is a foe beyond any of us

• We are born into this death, this slavery, and yet we love it and choose it for ourselves
• The impact is we stray from our designed purpose, from God, from reality, and we run toward death and madness
• There is no strength in man to oppose such an enemy
• We are in a sense our own worst enemy

Seeing all of this helps to put into perspective how great our savior is. Where we failed, he succeeded. Where we sin, he is holy and perfect. Where we are dead, he chose death so that he might bring eternal life to us. We have given in to sin and death, but He has overcome it. Jesus Christ is the only hope we have to see, to live, to return our original purpose, to be sane, and to be saved. All glory belongs to Christ our Lord who died in the place of sinners and who defeated our enemy by the power of his indestructible life. By better seeing sin we should be able to  turn to Christ with renewed praise, worship, and dependence.

Love God More than Your Relationships

We are relational beings by design. God created us to be in relation with both him and others. To have relationships with others is a blessing of God. This is one way God shapes his people, especially within the church, through godly relationships. There are few blessings of greater worth than godly relationships.

But with all good things, Satan, our culture, and we can twist what God designed for good to our own detriment. God has called us to love him with everything we have (Mark 12.30), not to love people more than him. When we love someone more than God, it will lead us away from the one who created us to enjoy relationships in the first place. 

Now to be clear, God wants us to love others. But he wants us to do so underneath and as a result of our love for him. Our love for others must never overshadow our love and obedience to God. When they do, we have already been deceived, and the groundwork has been laid for greater and greater deception. 

It is this potential for relationships to deceive us, and to even supplant God, which leads to some of the more difficult passages of Scripture. In Deuteronomy God tells the Israelites to not marry any of the Canaanites. The concern here is not ethnic purity; rather, it is that the Canaanites will lead the Israelites to worship false gods (Deut. 7.3-4).  God gave this command for the good of Israel, because if they were to stray  away God they would in turn receive his punishment. 

Sadly, Israel did not obey. This is chiefly demonstrated by King Solomon who had many foreign wives who led him away from God (1 Kings 11). This was the genesis of the breaking of Israel and eventually their exile. 

It is in this vein that Jesus utters a similar warning in Matthew 10:37, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Why would Jesus say such a thing? This is type of statement sounds harsh and backwards in our culture today. But he said this because he knows relationships can be deceptive which can lead them to being viewed as more important than God. It is easy to be blinded by what you can see and touch. It is easy to receive the acceptance, love, and joy of another person and thus elevate upon God. It is easy to value people over God precisely because they are right before us. Yet when we do this, we make them into an idol, a false god. When place people in the place where only God belongs, we will further compromise our relationship with him. 

Sadly I have seen this all too often. Whether it is the pastor or theologian who has a close family member who “comes out” as gay, leading them to compromise what scripture teaches us about it. Or if it the Christian kid who appears rock solid in the faith until they “fall in love” with a Catholic. Now in pursuit of that love and being “complete” they convert leaving behind the teachings of Scripture. Or if it's the professing Christian who rightly desires to be married that he/she will use the term “Christian” as just a box which must be checked off. "You call yourself a Christian? That's all I needed to hear!"

The results in these scenarios are sad but predictable. When we value relationships  over God we have setup a false god in this place. When we do that, inevitably we will walk farther and farther from God as we chase a false god. 

When thinking about relationships, whether friendships, family, or romantic, I think there are three questions we should ask of ourselves.

1. Do I have a proper view of relationships, especially marriage? 

Our culture tells us that life is about love, especially romantic love. Friendship, family, and spouses are great gifts from God, but they are not ultimate. Relationships will either lead toward God or away from him. A lot of this starts with what priority you place on relationships. If you value them too highly, to the extent that you are willing to compromise your beliefs or change them simply because of someone you know, then you have an idol problem. You have too high of a view of the importance of that relationship.  Instead, our relationships should honor God by pointing ourselves and others to him and his truth. Godly relationships recognize that God is ultimate. 

2. Is this relationship bringing my closer to God or farther from him?

Parents rightly fear that their children may fall in with the wrong crowd. But we rarely think about this for ourselves. God established boundaries in relationships to safeguard his people, not to be a fun-hater. Christians, you must only marry actual Christians. That is those who are actively seeking God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. If your relationship is in violation to God’s commands, then you need to rethink it. If your relationship is causing you to sin, then you must repent. If your relationship is causing you compromise, or to become more like the world, then you are being deceived. But if your relationship encourages you to grow in faith, to love other rightly, then enjoy it to the fullest extent and thus bring glory to God. One way or the other we must recognize that deceptive power relationship can present. Your relationships will either draw you near to God or pull you far from him. 

3. Am I seeking to get something from this relationship it can’t provide?

Because of our natural desire for relationships we can sometimes go to them seeking something they were never designed to give us. Our culture tells us that romantic love is highest goal. That you must find that “soul-mate” who will “complete you”. This is utter nonsense. If you seek to find your worth, fulfillment, identity, or reason for life in another person then you have setup a false idol who is both deaf and mute. By this I mean this relationship cannot bring that about, and no relationship between humans ever will. Your relationship may take the place of God in your heart, but it can never actually replace the God of the universe. These things, can only come from God through Jesus Christ. If you are seeking them in other people, you cannot be seeking God as you should be. If this is what you are doing, then your relationship will not be God-honoring and it will, like with Solomon, lead you farther from God and not closer to him. Seek your purpose in God, not in man. 

We must teach ourselves and our children to love God more than our relationships. If following God costs you a relationship, if it means you must be single longer than you want to be, if it means the world will despise you, then you must follow God and not man. Relationships are a good gift from God, but God is greater still. 

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Thankful to Whom?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. As such our culture will be talking about what they are thankful for and about giving thanks. There is no doubt that being thankful is a good thing as it prevents us from becoming selfish and prideful. But the question we should all ask ourselves every Thanksgiving is, “To whom am I thankful? If we are giving thanks, then who is receiving this thanks?"

For much of our history Christianity has been the assumed background of America. This meant when people talked about giving thanks it was assumed that the God of Scripture was in view. There was no need to specify who  was receiving this thanks. Things are very different today. For example, my unbelieving neighbor may say he is thankful to God, but he in no way would mean he is thankful to the God of Scripture. He is thankful to some undefined belief in a higher-being. 

Others in our society have absolutely nothing and no one they are directing their thankfulness toward. They are just happy they have lots of stuff. In reality they are thankful about things they possess without directing that knowledge toward anything outside of themselves. Our society no longer has a shared worldview, an assumed Christianity,  so when different people express thankfulness they may be directing it toward Allah, Vishnu, the universe, karma, fate, luck, a nameless god which resembles a personal cheerleader, or even themselves!

It is here that Christians must pause and think deeply about how we communicate our thankfulness in world marked by this confusion and relativism. As Francis Schaeffer reminded us, we worship the God who really is there. He really does exist and our God is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Our thankfulness does have a direction—The LORD God of Scripture. As we gather tomorrow to express thankfulness, we have the unique opportunity to define who are thankful too in contrast to the undefined thankfulness which saturates our culture. In defining our thankfulness, we are not only recognizing reality, but we are also proclaiming the gospel to a confused world. 

As Christians we can offer this contrast as we gather with friends and family and as we talk about Thanksgiving in public or on social media. The contrast is that we are giving thanks to an actual God who does exist and who has in reality blessed us. 

We are thankful to God of the Bible who has revealed himself to us through the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is Christ who is the foundation for our hope and the chief reason we are thankful. It is because of Christ that we can offer thanks to the God who is there, the one who rules the universe. This is what I am thankful for—that I know the Lord of lords through the work of Jesus Christ.

It is precisely because this God is real that we shouldn't hesitate to clearly say that we are thankful to the God of Scripture  as opposed to being thankful just for the sake of being thankful. Our God is there and he has blessed us; so let us offer him the thanks which is his due.