July 10, 2012
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called
an apostle, because I persecuted the
We talk a lot about the spirit of
religion. That is the haughty, proud spirit that infests far too much of modern
Christendom in this country. It is the spirit that seeks to build a building
instead of the kingdom. It is the spirit that lauds itself over others in a
false sense of moral superiority that it actually does not possess. In the
times of Jesus, the Pharisees embodied the religious spirit of the day. It was
always about show and never about substance. It was all about man and never
truly about God. It was always about religion and never about relationship.
Because that is what God wants with us beloved. He desires a close and intimate
relationship with us. The spirit of religion is Martha yelling at Jesus because
Mary sits at His feet. It is not just that Mary was not helping; it was that
she had the nerve to believe she had the right to sit at the feet of the
Master.
I was having this discussion the
other day about how this religious spirit can become manifest in people and in
a church body. I honestly believe that it boils down to one simple fact -- we
forget where God found us. We forget that the person we deride as a sinner in
the world was once us. We forget that the person we castigate as not being
spiritual enough was once us. We simply forget:
I
waited patiently for the Lord ; he turned to me and
heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my
feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. -- Psalm 40: 1-2 (NIV)
I remember the slimy pit God found
me in. I remember the bars and the empty promises this world had convinced me
of before God reached way down to scoop me back up into His arms. Where did God
find you? I think sometimes we are on a quest to minimize what we should
magnify. We spend years trying to convince ourselves that the pit God found us
in wasn't that bad -- or it wasn't that deep. Slimy? No, it was just a little
messy but not slimy. We want to feel better about our sin condition instead of
feeling better about our saved position in Christ.
The Apostle Paul was originally
known as Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. When we come upon
him in the Bible this is where we find him:
When they
heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But
Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God,
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look,"
he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of
God."
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices,
they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.
Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named
Saul. -- Acts 7: 54-58 (NIV)
This was the pit God found Saul in. He was a
persecutor of the church and presided of the deaths of Christians, including
the first Martyr here, Stephen. God knocked Saul from his high horse and the
new creation that stood before us was Paul, the great Apostle. Paul would go on
for decades spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire known world. He
undertook three harrowing missionary journeys. He eventually would write what
would become three quarters of the New Testament which would become the foundation for
Christian doctrine. I think it is safe to say that Paul had arrived at some
point. Paul had every opportunity to think better of himself. To think that his
works had allowed him some sliver of thinking better of himself. But as the key
verse today indicates -- he never did. He never gave into the religious spirit.
He never thought highly of himself at all. Realize that 20 years have passed
since the young Pharisee Saul stood over a dying Stephen. But Paul never forgot
that was where God found him. That was where God saved him.
Instead of minimizing where he came from, Paul
magnified it as a means to keep himself humble before the Lord. The religious
spirit is not humble at all. When we look into the writings of Paul I think we
find some insight into the process of staying humble for the Apostle. Later in
the same letter to the Church at
To keep me
from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there
was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded
with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for
you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest
on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak,
then I am strong. -- 1Corinthians 12: 7-10 (NIV)
To keep me from being conceited. To keep me from
becoming proud. To keep me humble. These are all things that will prevent a
spirit of religiosity from forming in Paul. What kept him so? A thorn in his
flesh -- tormenting him. Many have speculated throughout the centuries what this
thorn could have been. Many postulate that it was some form of physical ailment
that the Apostle suffered from. I disagree. I think that Paul was tormented
over who he was when Christ found him. I think he had nightmares of standing
over the first martyr Stephen as bricks and stones crushed his body and his
blood stained the ground. And realize that these Scriptures say that the thorn
was a messenger from Satan. Wouldn't that be just like the devil to remind us
of what we were before God saved us? Wouldn't that be just like the devil to
torment us with our own sins? But what does God assure Paul of? His grace is
sufficient for him. Grace is the unmerited favor of God -- despite of who we are
and what we have done. Despite our sins. There are far too many Christians
walking under condemnation and guilt for things that Christ has already died
for. The grace of God is sufficient for whatever it is that we may have done --
past, present and future.
But humility starts with remembering where God
found us. Avoiding the proud religious spirit starts with remembering where God
found us. Is that place painful at times? Sure, but the grace of God covered it
and is sufficient for us. Please realize that this is NOT an exercise in guilt.
The object is not to feel guilty for where God found you but to feel so much
better about the grace with which we are to be walking under. Within that grace
lies the relationship we are to have with God. That close and intimate
relationship that He so desires to have with us. Within that grace is where the
true power of God in our lives resides. That is what Paul is saying here. In
order to be strong in the Lord we must first be weak in ourselves, realizing
that it only by the grace of God do I proceed. Where did God find you? Do not
run from it -- embrace it because it is your God-glorifying testimony! Do not
feel guilty over it -- embrace it because God freed you and delivered you from
it! Do not forget it -- because it is what will keep you from becoming conceited
about the things of God. It will keep you from the religious spirit. It will
keep you.
