Jesse came by to discuss his discouragement. He had been so excited about being a Christian and being filled with the Holy Spirit. His enthusiasm had been enhanced by getting to witness some real answers to prayer. People had been really healed and delivered from bondage. But now he was confused by the constant appearance of troubles in his path. Issues with family, finance, and personal holiness kept cropping up. He was somewhat defeated because he couldn’t live in “victory.”
Sarah called. She had been attracted to the ministry of a very charismatic leader who had great communication skills. He always had some new exotic insight or novel interpretation. The followers were sure they knew some secrets about the Bible that ordinary people didn’t. His message had promised that if they would buy into it, they would have the best life, free from the entanglements of Satan’s schemes. She had been involved for 7 years and finally admitted that it wasn’t working. No matter how hard she tried to believe and behave better, she was losing the battle.
I saw Jim at church. He had lost his job due to cutbacks at his company. It had shaken him and he had come to the realization that God was confronting him with his selfish ambition and workaholic nature. He was having trouble knowing how to wait and rest in the Lord. Some had told him to just pray and wait. Others told him he should look for a job. He wasn’t sure about the line between laziness and resting.
Is there a text in Scripture that will give us help here? Let’s focus on 2 Corinthians 10-12. Paul the Apostle was in an awkward position. It was necessary for him to defend his apostleship. Some “false apostles” had come to Corinth and were seeking to pull the believers away from Paul’s gospel. They were denouncing Paul as inferior to them. After all, he had experienced lots of problems with his circumstances. He had been put in jail. He had been rejected by popular civic and religious leaders in several provinces. He had some kind of physical ailment that threatened his effectiveness at times. He had been stoned, shipwrecked, left without food and water, and had to work for his own living. They concluded that if he had the “victory of faith” he would not be experiencing such “defeats.”
Paul explains a perspective that is not obvious to those who measure success by natural means. We as sin-influenced humans tend to measure our strength by personal achievement and popular acclaim. Paul discovered a better way.
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 2 Corinthians 11:30 (ESV)
The false prophets expose our immaturity by appealing to our lower motivation. There have been several reports recently decrying the obesity among children in the U.S. They point out that children love fast food. Why? Because good marketers have trained us to like grease and fat so we will purchase their product. Advertising has come a long way in the past 50 years. There was a time when the product was offered to meet an already existing need. Now successful marketers create the need for their product by training the public to like what they sell.
The gospel has been marketed by the same mentality. People have been trained to like the fast-food-type spirituality. We gravitate toward celebrity-leaders, thornless roses, natural success, majority opinion, and elitism. Operating on this level of motivation, we inevitably put more stock in resumes than proven character. We listen to Oprah, Dr. Phil, T.V. ministers, athletes, and movie stars as if they had better opinions than an elderly grandfather who has lived life in the trenches. Just because one has attained celebrity status, he or she is granted more authority in our lives. So in church life, we are buying the fast-food of shallow preaching, sensational stories, and sound-bite theology. It suits our acquired taste.
But something is wrong. We are trying to satisfy a hunger inside that can only be met by the message of the true gospel. Obesity and starvation are slowly encroaching on our malnourished souls. We are feeding on a message that is created by a cross-less culture, and it doesn’t satisfy.
We seem to think that if we eat more of what is offered we will finally get well, but we just get more and more unhealthy. Grease and fat will not nourish us no matter how much we consume. There is the longing for the extraordinary spiritual experiences, but often for the wrong reasons. It seems the false prophets of Corinth were using their unusual “revelations” as leverage to gain authority over the believers. Paul had an extraordinary experience and saw things he could not tell. (What would be the fun in that?) Whatever he saw and heard helped make him a servant who refused to use his credentials to impress. He did not want others to think more highly than his own person warranted.
What a contrast. It seems the trend now is to impress so that people will follow and help us build our ministries. Resumes are altered and reputations are exaggerated in order to gain leverage.
Also, Paul was gospel obsessed. He would confront Peter and contradict any other preacher who sought to diminish the gospel in order to appease someone. Whatever Paul saw in his visionary experience made him more passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was absolutely convinced that the gospel must be proclaimed and protected if God’s purpose was to be accomplished through the church. He refused to mix the Greek oratory with the gospel, and he was willing to be called a poor speaker as a result. He would not allow the circumcision party to add to the simple gospel and it cost him dearly as he was threatened, accused, beaten, jailed, and stoned because of it.
And remember, the extraordinary revelations were the issue for the thorn in the flesh. God gave him the thorn, using Satan’s messenger, to prevent conceit. I sometimes wonder if those who are so anxious to visit the third heaven have thought about the ramifications. It could be that the very reasons we think it is great are the very reasons we couldn’t handle it. From what is evident in Paul’s life, what he saw messed him up for celebrity-style Christianity.
Who creates false prophets? There wouldn’t be false prophets if there were no market for them. People trained to consume religious fast-food demand a certain style leader. He or she must produce what tastes good to our malnourished souls. They must perform as saviors, healers, fathers, fix-it men, and celebrities. They aren’t allowed to look common or act naturally. They must not make mistakes and they must compete with entertainers and professional speakers for our attention. Their message must always be positive and never mention the consequences of negative choices.
If they are musicians, they must sing the tunes like we hear on the fast-food CD’s. The lyrics don’t have to carry any theological meaning as long as they sound good and have some kind of rhyme. As long as the band on the stage is loud and contemporary, we in the congregation are content to vicariously worship through them. So the musicians as well as the preachers have become false prophets in the sense that they are meeting market demands but ignoring the heart of the gospel.
Like the false apostles of Paul’s day, the consumer demands that his leader be triumphal. He might have to deny his limitations or hide his weaknesses, but he must always smile and say the right things. So leaders who want to succeed are strongly tempted to become the figure his public demands.
So who is the loser? First, the consumer loses spiritual nutrition. He or she continues to consume more and more religious stuff hoping for relief. Eventually, there are not enough Bible studies, TV programs, church activities, or praise songs. Actually there is just not enough time to take it all in.
Then the leaders lose. If they have truly been called to proclaim the gospel, they began to feel like prostitutes. Without the satisfaction of exalting Christ, they settle for building larger personal kingdoms. After years of less than they expected they cry, “Burnout!” Fading into the sunset of their ministry they wonder if it was all worth it.
The Lord himself is diminished. Jesus gave himself for the gospel. It alone is the power of God unto salvation and when it is not proclaimed and practiced, the glory of the cross is dishonored. When the gospel is not held high, the glory of Christ is not seen. When Christ is not exalted, the purpose of God is not fulfilled. When the purpose of God is not fulfilled, the nations suffer. There is no winner except hell when we adopt the value system of false apostles or false prophets. But remember! Where there is no market there is no proliferation of consumer preachers.
God’s design is to exalt Jesus through our weaknesses. Even Paul was subject to conceit when given special privilege (thus the reason for the thorn in the flesh). None of us are immune to pride. Remember Israel. They were the least of all nations. God granted them special privilege and they interpreted it as leverage. Paul was given such high-level revelations he could not reveal them. Imagine what kind of intrigue he could have created in mass meetings if he had even hinted that he was somehow special because of how God had spoken to him. But the gospel was too important for that. God gave him something to counteract the temptation.
What was it that Paul called a thorn in the flesh? We don’t really know. It was something he had rather do without. It was affliction. He prayed for deliverance from it. It was not some habitual sin. It was something that exposed his desperate need for the grace of God. It was something that made people need to look beyond his personal appearance or performance to see who he really was. If you just looked at the surface, you would have missed the real Paul. It was somehow potentially offensive to some in the church. Yet those who could see beyond the surface knew they were dealing with a spiritual heavy-weight. He didn’t need a resume to establish his authority. He walked with an authority that comes from grace in time of need. His weakness made room for a grace that was more powerful than man’s titles could convey.
We tend to want a deliverance that rids us of any affliction that requires faith. Whatever deliverance is, it doesn’t render us free enough to neglect our daily dependence on Jesus. He will never fix us so well that we don’t need the fellowship. We are delivered into a dependence on him. Whatever moves us in that direction is a great gift from God, even it is delivered by Satan’s messenger.
When the thorn is recognized as a gift we can focus on being confident in grace rather than defeated by affliction. With this perspective, we can wait without becoming passive, and work without idolatry. Our privilege is to respond to him on a daily basis and enjoy the journey. Our success is not measured by numbers or activity. We can be content to work with one in obscurity as well as with thousands in public. Resting in his sovereignty allows us to act with purpose and hope yet avoid the passivity of fatalism. We can also enjoy watching the fruit of labor when he works through us. Our excitement grows as we observe the gospel actually transforming mankind and their cultures, and we want to be more involved.
When we refuse to admit our thorns, or constantly complain about them, we reveal that our purpose is less than exalting Christ. We are demanding a thorn-free existence.
So while we believe, preach, and embrace a victorious gospel, we are content for it to be expressed through our weaknesses. Like our Lord who appeared to be weak on the cross, we may appear to be weak to those who can’t see, but we know about Sunday. What feels like defeat might just be our greatest victory.
SYNERGY - Better Together: October 01, 2010 click for more > Five Pillars of New Testament Discipleship: : October 15, 2010 click for more > Family Reunion Retreat: December 03, 2010 click for more >
