Sunday Morning Discourse: Saved Revisited

The other day I loaned Kara my copy of Saved! because she really wanted to see it. So I called her Saturday morning to see what she thought about it and we had a rather interesting and at times heated discussion. In the end however I think we came to a better understanding of it and I wanted to touch on some ideas and misconceptions that we at least had in the past about our faith.

Disclaimer: All these misconceptions were my own, you may or may not have shared, or currently hold them. These are planks I removed from my own eyes, not specks I’m hunting in yours

Crossing the line:

We are hard on non-Christians. We are appalled at their lack of Christian morals, shocked at their non-Christ-like behaviors, and repulsed at their state of imperfection.

What surprises me most is that we are surprised at their current state. What do we expect for a non-Christians?

Honestly? Perfection. We want them to be perfect as we are perfect. One of the biggest obstacles that a non-Christian faces in coming to Christ is the concept of perfection. We as Christians have in our minds sometimes that in order to become a Christian a person must cast aside all those sins in their lives that they have clung to for so long, before they can come to Christ.

“You’re living together with another woman, well you have to leave her before you can become a Christian.” Drugs? Alcohol? Foul language? Pornography? A democrat? You name the sin, we want them to stop it before they come to Christ.

Well how are they supposed to do that, they don’t have Jesus in their lives yet?

Even if we do allow them to cross into the fold despite their imperfection, we turn around and demand it from them on the other side.

“Well Joe, you’re a Christian now and things are going to have to change. You’re life is going to have to start looking different or you’re out of our club.”

We forget that the goal of our race is perfection, that we will not be perfect until we are dead. We look around at those who are running the race with us and we are disappointed because others are not at the place we are.

We consistently change the line for the others in the race. The only place that is acceptable to be in your faith is where we are at or ahead of us. If you are lagging in your faith then obviously you are not as dedicated as I am. Your faith isn’t strong, it isn’t real. I will even go so far as to question your commitment to Christ and the even the fact that you are a Christian.

What you’re not running? Well then, you’re just a Sunday Christian.

What you stumbled and fell? Then I will label you. I will warn others about you, I will call you out, slander your name, turn my back on you, point out your flaws and your mistakes and I will drive you from the race that you are now in.

I will ask rhetorical questions that we all really know the answers to. How can you be a real Christian and make those wrong choices (those sins)? Obviously you cannot, and obviously you are not a real Christian.

How dare you wear the name of Christ and be face down in the dirt. There is no room for a Christian like that in this race.

If you are struggling with a sin (openly – and that really is the key to Christianity today isn’t it? You are only a sinner if your sin is known) then it’s because you’re not a good Christian. If you struggle with a sin for years, then obviously you never really made that commitment. Change must take place instantly, no exceptions. Perfection on demand.

Everyone must have our level of understanding and apply that understanding in the same uneven fashion as we do, or they are the scourge of the earth.

In my opinion, it is enough that they have entered the race.

It is enough that they have crossed the line and started. By beginning they have won. I do not care how much progress they have made, they are in the race. We forget that it takes time for the Holy Spirit to work in someone’s life to bring about the changes that they need. We want to see perfection now. We want to see change now, instant gratification; the entire time over looking our own sins, flaws, and short comings. Can you sin and still be a Christian? Absolutely.

That’s another large misconception that we have in our opinion of others (or at least I did).

It is this idea that a Christian is in a constant state of flux in their “Salvation Standing”. It is that concept that we swing from being saved to lost depending on our current sin balance.

I remember in college having times through out the day where I thought, “Man, I better pray and ask God to forgive me because I’m sure I’ve done things that are wrong”. What would happen to me if I were to die suddenly without having asked for those sins to be forgiven? Well, I’d go to hell, because only a person without sin can enter the kingdom of heaven. I was only saved as long as I was without sin.

Grace is such a foreign concept in the Church of Christ at least. We hear the verse in Romans 6, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By all means no!” so often that we forget what it says. We use as a way to say that if you sin there is no grace. Therefore those who sin are lost.

None of this is to say that I believe that you are, “once saved, always saved”; nor is this a defense on sin as an attempt to justify it. God hates sin, God hates our sin. I hate my sin; but that isn’t to say, “once sinned, always lost.”

When is the magic moment when we as Christians fall from God’s grace and returns to the world of being lost? I don’t know. But I thank God every day that his grace is not as short as I have though in the past or that others around me would claim.

The Bible is clear: God hates sin. I’m not trying to cop-out and say, “Oh, we’re all sinners, lets just accept it.” On the contrary, I believe that we need to continue to seek out sin in our own lives and work to become a master of it. Paul reminds us that we are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness, we just forget that. Just because I don’t have a faith that can move mountains doesn’t mean that I do not have any faith at all.

When we sin, God doesn’t reach out with his giant boot of justice and crush us on the spot, instead he forgives us, restores us, picks us up, cleans us up and sets us back on the right road. There are those who would keep the doors of the church closed until we had done all that for ourselves. When you see a brother struggling with sin, seek to restore him, treat them with compassion and understanding, for some it will be a life long battle, if we turn them away (even the Christian) because of their imperfection then they are more likely to be lost for good.

We need to spend less of our time criticizing the imperfection of those around us and examine ourselves in our own relationship to God. That was one of the main points of Saved! I do not believe at any point in the movie did it justify the actions of those who were in it, that it was a good idea to sin, but rather an acceptance that we are going to sin, all of us, but thank God for his grace for when we do. What that cliche in mind, “I too am a sinner saved by God’s grace”, we need to look at those around us with fresh eyes, the same eyes that we want God to look at us with.