“We pretend a righteousness that
isn’t fully there. We offer just enough
honesty so as to come across as
sincere, but not nearly enough that we
might actually be exposed.”
November 2020 — pg. 15
Lying. Materialism. Lust. Pride. Porn. Hatred. Gossip.
Adultery. These words (and others like them) describe
experiences in which many people we know either
openly or secretly engage. They may even express areas
where some of us struggle personally, even if we’d rather not
admit it. But at the same time, the Scriptures, and even the
words of Jesus, portray us with prophetic promise: more than
conquerors, a new creation, child of God, citizen of heaven,
saint, salt, light. These words describe anyone who has put
their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord! And yet, there
is such a contrast between these descriptors and the known
and often unacknowledged reality of what a person may
wrestle with.
The prophetic tension of the already and the not yet is seen
as clearly in the struggle for righteousness as it is anywhere
else.
Step into what’s right and out of the shame.
As believers, we receive the gift of positional righteousness
when we are born again. And after that, our practical
righteousness is a matter of the choices we make, empowered
by the grace of God and obedience to the leading of the Holy
Spirit. As an aspect of our discipleship, we must embrace the
positional righteousness that is already ours in Christ Jesus,
and fight for practical righteousness in Christ to any degree
we have not yet attained. We need to embrace the invitation
of God to step further into the righteousness He calls us to —
and out of the shame and shadows of sin still secret.
The problem is, if we’ve been around the church long
enough, we’ve discovered that there’s a game we play. Instead
of living out the scriptural imperative to confess our sins to
one another that we may be healed (James 5:16), instead
of acknowledging the tension between our positional
righteousness and our practical lack thereof, we play
pretend. We pretend a righteousness that isn’t fully there.
We offer just enough honesty so as to come across as sincere,
but not nearly enough that we might actually be exposed.
Then — instead of finding healing, freedom and growth in
holiness — we find further shame and guilt, and we end up
even further from the practical righteousness to which we
are called.
A few days ago, I got a text message from John, a brother in
our church. He said, “I am celebrating three years of sobriety
from sexual sin, and I want to thank you and the leaders of
Centerpoint for creating a place where I could heal and be
set free. Thank you for bringing Ted Roberts to CP!”
These messages are the kind of thing that keeps a pastor
going. John is now the leader of our Conquer and Seven
Pillars men’s groups. Almost four years ago, we hosted Ted
Roberts to speak at our church (his actual name is Benjamin
Theodor Roberts, and, yes, his parents were Free Methodists
as was Ted for a while). Ted is the founder of Pure Desire
Ministries, and we use his resources to help Christian men
get free from sexual sin. At the core, though, the Pure Desire
resources call for abandoning the typical Christian charade
of pseudo-holiness in favor of the real thing.
To step into what is truly right, we have to recognize the
prison of shame for what it is — and step out of it. The Pure
Desire resources provide just one example of embracing
vulnerability, transparency and confession of sin with
accountability as a path into real righteousness. John Wesley
set this course for us long ago. The “Holy Club Questions”
would help any number of us to get real with our lack of
righteousness.
“Do I disobey God in anything?” That query would be a
great place to start, and that’s just one of the 22 questions. To
take it further, think of one of Wesley’s holy band meeting
questions: “What known sins have you committed since our
last meeting?” Wesley’s quest for holiness assumed that there
would likely be sin to confess. Wesley seemed to assume that
a proper path of stepping into righteousness necessitated a
stepping out of the shame through honest acknowledgment
of sin.
Embrace — and eschew — our history.
About 15 years ago at a funeral reception, I met with a
woman who was in her mid 70s. She shared about her life
and faith over a cup of tea. She spoke fondly about camp
meetings she had attended and about her love for the old
hymns. She also talked with bitter and biting tones about
her disdain for the “new music,” how she couldn’t stand her
new pastor, how she had been wronged by the leaders of
the women’s ministry, and how she was still upset that they
had also canceled the bell choir without her input, among
other things. I asked her about whether her anger about
these things was something she might need to pray through
/
/
/