"Christians Who Won't Grow Up"

“Christians Who Won’t Grow Up”

Robert M. Thompson, Pastor

Corinth Reformed Church
150 Sixteenth Avenue NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601

828.328.6196   corinthtoday.org

 (© 2011 by Robert M. Thompson.  Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 2011 by New York International Bible Society.)

We aim to be childlike, not childish.

A new book is due out this week.  Titled, “Love Wins,” it is written by megachurch pastor Rob Bell of Grand Rapids, Michigan.  The book has ignited a lot of conversation before most of us have had a chance to read it.   Somebody knows marketing. 

Not just pastors and theologians are debating Rob Bell’s book in the blogosphere.  Bell’s Facebook post and YouTube video are getting thousands of hits.  I’m getting e-mails from church members who have heard about the controversy.  The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today have already run articles on the book and the debate.  I had breakfast in Arlington, Virginia this past Tuesday with a member of our church who’s in graduate school at Georgetown University, and he wanted to talk about this book.

The book and the controversy are relevant to this week’s sermon because the writer of Hebrews says one of the “elementary teachings” of the Christian faith is “eternal judgment.”

In Rob Bell’s promotional video, he starts by telling the story of an art exhibit at the converted mall which is home to his congregation of 10,000.  The exhibit included a piece with a quote from Gandhi.  Someone had hand-written a note and  the words, “Reality check: Gandhi is in hell.”

Bell says on his video, “Gandhi’s in hell?  He is?  And someone knows this for sure?  And felt the need to let the rest of us know?  Will only a few select people make it to heaven?  And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell?  And if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few?  Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do or who you know or something that happens in your heart or do you need to be initiated or baptized or take a class or be born again?  How does one become one of these few?  Then there is the question behind the questions?  What is God like?”

Bell’s conclusion is that “Love wins.”  He says that the message of eternal judgment is one of the absurdities that cause people to reject the Christian faith.    What we teach sounds like Jesus saves us from God.

You may not want to know what I think about Bell’s book, but if you do, you’ll have to wait.  I thought I was ordering my copy well in advance of the release date, but I guess Amazon.com sold out its first run and I won’t get the book until tomorrow.  Then I’ll read it, and write my own response.  I will drop a few hints, however, at the end of this sermon.  I hope that my response will, indeed, affirm that “love wins.”

Grow up

What the writer of Hebrews wants to do in these few verses is motivate us to grow up.  His audience (I say “his” somewhat generically since the writing is anonymous and the author could have been female) is made up of Jewish Christians who are considering an abandonment of the “Christian” part of their spiritual identity.  He says that would be a giant step backward.

This writer uses a number of different metaphors to make his point about the arrested development of his readers.

(1)   They are “hard of hearing” (5:11).  The NIV says “slow to learn,” and this phrase could even be translated “dumb as a rock.”  But the focus is not on those who can’t learn, but those who won’t listen.

(2)   They are students when they should be teachers (5:12).  They have been in school long enough to help others learn.  They prefer continually reviewing their ABCs (“elementary truths of God’s word”) to a deeper level of thinking.

(3)   They are drinking milk when they should be eating meat, potatoes, and carrots – solid food (5:13).  Baby food is for babies.  Move on.

(4)   They have become lazy, when what they need is need discipline – training in discerning good and evil (5:14).  When it comes to their Christian living, they are unskilled because they never practice.

(5)   They are still building a foundation when they should long ago have moved on to erecting the walls and adding the roof (6:1).

The Message paraphrases all these metaphors in the words printed on the front of your bulletin:  “Let’s leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art.  Grow up in Christ” (6:1).

A Christian primer

If you’re like me, you ask yourself at this point, “OK, what is it I am supposed to know by now?  What are the ABCs of God’s word?”  Good question. 

“Therefore,” the writer begins chapter 6 (meaning since we need to grow up), “let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation….”

When he tells us to “leave” these teachings, I don’t think he means to abandon them.  He is telling us to “go on to maturity.”  You don’t leave your skills in dribbling and passing, shooting and moving your feet, when you get to the NCAA basketball tournament.  You learn complex offenses and defenses that build on primary skills.

There are three pairs of phrases in 6:1-2 that outline the basics, or “the elementary teachings” (6:1) –

• Repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God,
• Instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands,
• The resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Because sometimes we do take these for granted, let’s go over them again.  Hebrews is going to push us to some graduate lessons in the weeks to come, but let’s be content today with a primer on the Christian faith.

To keep it simple, let me summarize the ABCs this way: believe, belong, and behave.  These are the three foundations of the Christian faith.

Foundation #1: believe.  “Repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God.”  The NIV is actually too wordy here.  Other versions are more direct, simpler, and closer to the original:  “repentance from dead works.”

Repentance is a U-turn.  The “dead works” are all the efforts we substitute for faith in God.  For the readers of this letter, those “dead works” may have been religious ceremonies, like temple sacrifices.  They haven’t disappeared as a substitute for true faith.  People who go to church or take communion or give money or pray or serve the poor because they think those acts earn them favor with God are trusting in “dead works.”  Superstitions and rituals, religious or otherwise, are dead works.  But dead works can also be actions that lead to self-destructions – addictions to alcohol or mind-altering drugs or pornography or food or shopping or working or leisure or hoarding our resources. 

When we substitute anything at all for God to give life meaning, we’re still back in Preschool, spiritually speaking.  We’re still learning to count and finger paint and say the days of the week.  But when we simply let go of the props and the excuses and the diversions and the ways in which we try to manipulate God, we’re ready for the next level.  When we choose to trust – trust Christ for forgiveness, trust God for provision, trust the Holy Spirit to guide our way – the foundation is laid and we can start building the walls.  It isn’t always easy, this believing, and there are greater and more severe tests along the way.  Fortunes rise and fall, people betray and disappoint, feelings come and go.  But none of that matters, because we know whose we are.  We believe.

Foundation #2: belong.  “Instructions about baptisms, the laying on of hands.”  This is a little more obscure, which I find somewhat odd in a list of “elementary truths.”  Part of the problem is that he says “baptisms” instead of “baptism.”  And what does he mean by the “laying on of hands.”  Let me take a stab at both.

There were different kinds of ceremonial washings in Judaism and early Christianity.  Some were prescribed in the Bible, and some were added by communities of believers.  All of them had in common some kind of outward symbol of something that happened inside.  A person underwent various baptisms voluntarily – they were never forced.  It was a way of choosing to display outwardly and publicly what one believed.

As for “laying on of hands,” this too was public and voluntary.  Whether hands were laid on a new believer for baptism or a seasoned believer to set them aside for service or leadership, the point was visible and symbolic.  Nobody forces the laying on of hands.  You choose it.

In both cases, you are choosing a symbol of identifying with and belonging to a community of faith.  You belong.

This is elementary.  You choose a commitment to the body of believers that is formalized in baptism and in a handshake or a hug or a ceremony.   When you are a believer, one of the most basic lessons is that you join the community of faith.

Let me clarify.  I’m not necessarily talking about what we call “membership” at Corinth, although the concept is related.  But we have “members” who are less committed to the body of believers than non-members.  I am talking about the difference between a person who feels very free to come and go at will, to show up or help out when it’s convenient, and disappear without accountability if it’s not.  In a volunteer culture, you can belong or not – your choice.

The writer of Hebrews is saying that one of the foundations of the Christian faith is that you accept the rite of baptism and welcome the laying on of hands to symbolize that you are committed to a local family of believers – you will attend, you will give, you will serve, you will teach, you will prioritize, you will submit to the disciplines of the family.  That’s basic.

Foundation #3: behave.  “The resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”  At first glance, you may wonder what this has to do with behaving.  It has to do with the future, right?

Yes, but remember at the end of chapter 5 the author talked about “the teaching about righteousness” (5:13) and those who “have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (5:14).

What is the purpose of the Bible’s emphasis on what happens after death?  I can tell you with some degree of certainty that it is NOT so we can argue about who’s right and who’s wrong on all the details of how the future will unfold.  More time has been wasted in vain arguments over things we cannot know than in filling out NCAA brackets (which I did for the first time this year).

The reasons the Bible teaches the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment are for hope and motivation.  It’s the ultimate in delayed gratification.  If you hold to what is true and live out a life consistent with that faith, you can look forward to the resurrection of the dead.

If you think that sounds like I’m waffling on salvation by grace alone – that you have to stay faithful to be assured of this salvation – you are partly right.  Keep reading in Hebrews 6:4-6, and we’ll talk about that more next week.

The point for now is that the future – resurrection or judgment – is supposed to keep you motivated to behave, to stay on the straight and narrow, to live a life consistent with what you say you believe.

That’s the primer on Christian faith – believe, belong, and behave.  It’s how you can be childlike in your faith without being childish.

God will do the right thing

What, then, about this conflict over Rob Bell’s book, “Love Wins”?  Is the matter of “eternal judgment” one of those subjects that is so elementary we shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time on it?  In other words, is Rob Bell promoting us to religious graduate school by teaching that eternal hell is unbiblical, unchristian, and unGodly?  Or is he demoting himself back to pre-Kindergarten, needing a little baby food about elementary teachings when he should be chewing on steak?

What drives me crazy about the book is actually the same thing that drives me crazy about much of the reaction to it.  It reminds me of a book I quoted from last year in more than one sermon, “Why We Hate Us,” by Dick Meyer.  What we Americans dislike about our culture is our arrogance and the OmniMarketing we use to promote ourselves.  The arrogance is reinforced by what we perceive as our superior ability to reason.  We’re smarter than any previous generation and smarter than the rest of the world.  Lest you should think I’m only complaining about others, I think I’m right as well and would like to tap into that marketing a little better to get my own views out. 

Christians are not only not immune to arrogance, we possess an additional weapon in our arsenal of truth – the Bible.  We know what we believe and can quote chapter and verse to back it up.  We know there are other verses that offer contrasting views, but we play Bible dodgeball – targeting our enemies with favorite verses while artfully stepping out of the path of their biblical missiles. 

It’s not that I believe Rob Bell shouldn’t argue his point.  But he knows full well that a traditional theology of hell is not about “Jesus saving us from God” – that’s a pithy one-liner hardly worthy of serious conversation about a serious topic.  His critics engage him on his own turf of reason and Scripture, each trying to argue the other into submission.  We Christians hang this dirty laundry out in the public eye while the world finds one more reason to disbelieve – our dismissive air of superiority toward others within the church.

Is there another way?  I think so.  We can think.  We can struggle.  We can acknowledge the tensions and mysteries in the Bible.  But we can also build on a foundation that seeks to be consistent in Scripture.  On the subject of eternal judgment, there are a few things to remember.

First, not everybody makes it to heaven, and eternal judgment is real.  I may not know the details, but that is a fairly consistent theme in the Bible.  It’s foundation.

Second, God is good and God is just.  He will do the right thing.  I don’t have to know what that right thing is.  When the dust settles on final destiny, whatever God did won’t be questioned by you, me, or anyone else.  We will be eternally amazed by his justice and his mercy.  That is true whether he sends billions and billions to hell or opens the door to everyone who ever lived.  God is God, and that’s up to him.

Third, my responsibility is to point people to the only way to heaven God has told us about – through Jesus.  If the effect of Rob Bell’s book is to decrease motivation for evangelism and missions, it’s not faithful to the message of the Bible.  My job is by my words and my actions to share the gospel of Jesus.

That’s how love wins.  And that is “elementary teaching.”  Amen.