Even if Your Voice Shakes
Articles and blog posts everywhere on why the church isn't relevant anymore, and why people don't sing anymore, and lists of all the stuff you need to stop saying as Christians, etc. -- the church isn't relevant anymore because over the last two decades (and really, from the beginning of time), the enemy has worked to pacify the church. To be silent. To drink the cultural cool-aid of "love wins".
In America today, the ethos is basically that to speak is to offend. To offend is to divide. To divide is to push people farther away from Jesus. To push people farther away from Jesus is to be a bad Christian -- and so on, but it eventually wraps around to the idea of "Don't speak. You don't know enough to make an impact. Don't make waves, because that's what the super intense, right-wing, extremist church people do who you've been ashamed of your whole life. Don't seek to know the singular truth and raise it high, you'll be alone. Don't read the Bible, you know the basic important parts. In fact, isn't the Bible just a bunch of random old scrolls written by dudes who didn't understand anything? Why stand up for something that we're not totally sure about?"
My friends, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ reading this around the globe, speak! Read the Word! Get to know the true God of the Bible through Jesus Christ - the only name by which anybody can be saved by grace through faith alone. We cannot be silent any longer! Take out the pacifiers imposed by a response graceless Christians of old and TRULY love others by preaching Christ crucified in all you say and do.
God. Does. Not. Want. Lukewarm. Christians.
In fact, it's crystal clear in scripture that crappy Christians aren't actually Christians at all and anger God more than those who just completely reject Him. Keep this in mind as a loving warning from a brother! The Word tends to build up, encourage, but also, wound deeply as to lovingly correct. He has delayed His judgement upon us so that we can get things right! He has given a type of grace to those who don't know in the form of time...and the saved live by that same time scale. If we quietly sit on our hands for the rest of our lives but raise them in a total baller worship service every weekend...how much glory are we bringing to God with our lives?
The church isn't relevant anymore because we've taken the out of our pulpits in order to coax people into the Kingdom. It doesn't work! People can't be sustained on hype, but rather true depth. Engaging our culture does not mean that we overlook true atrocities against God, and in many cases, even embracing them in attempts to widen the narrow gate for people. Instead, why don't we truly engage culture by responding to it Biblically? People. Need. To. Know. The. Truth. There are theological statements in everything, and it's not harmless.
I will warn you, this is entering battle. It's not the same as just being an average Christian. It will be uncomfortable, but it's required. We aren't to sit on our hands, we are to wear it on our sleeves. Jesus said that he didn't come to bring peace to the world, but a sword to divide even the closest of human relationships. It may cost you everything, but if faithful to trust and follow Christ until death, you will gain everything.
The reality is, running a race is work. A race is tiresome. A race takes determination through the uncomfortable to gain true success. Racing takes constant training and living in the tension to perform at the highest possible capacity. A race also takes a rival who is actively threatening your hope of winning.
With great pain and joy, I preach this to myself.
