Don't Separate What God Has Joined

One of the central hindrances to the work of discipleship in our city is a failure to recognize how Jesus relates to everything else -- everything under the sun. We have failed to teach one another to obey everything Jesus commanded and that what He commands regards everything in life. While much of fundamentalism did this woodenly and often in ways that went beyond the Scriptures, too many modern evangelical churches either don't do this or do it very badly. But if the central confession of the Christian church is the Lordship of Jesus, and the foundational mission of the church is to baptize the nations and teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded, then we must get this right. For too many Christians and the churches they attend, the central claims of Christianity have little bearing on how we actually conduct our lives - in our work, in our homes, in our politics, and in our public witness. There are millions of Christians in America, and there have been for quite a long time, but our society is increasingly pagan and secular in its cultural life. This is because our churches are increasingly pagan - if not in creed (though it is apparent that theological fidelity wanes in many circles), then in their worship and life. Holiness - both personal and cultural, has become a lost emphasis. Not the pietistic sort of holiness wherein we simply pray or read our Bibles and make sure to fit our religious commitments into our otherwise secular lives. But holiness as a fullness of life lived in glad obedience to God's law and grateful dependence on God's grace. The sort of holiness that fills dinner tables with wine, gladness, and thanksgiving. A holiness that raises children to fear God, love God, obey God, and walk in his wisdom and mercy. Holiness that cannot abide the public idols of our day - demanding the souls of our families, the capitulation of our church's worship, and the constant refrain in response to the commands of Scripture, "Did God really say?"

Two Premises:

- Jesus is Lord (of Everything.) As Abraham Kuyper famously said, "There is not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord over all, does not exclaim, 'Mine!'" Therefore, all of our human existence - including our social and political lives - should be lived in glad obedience to him, in covenantal communion with him, and grateful reliance on his grace. We are to do everything he commanded.

- What Jesus commanded is in the whole of Scripture, and Scriptures addresses everything in life.

Some Obstacles and Some Places to Go

- We have separated the Religious and the Secular - Francis Schaeffer spent his life fighting what he saw as the central problem in modern society. We had divided the world into two different stories or floors - an upper story of morality and religion and a lower level with everything in our day-to-day lives. This division runs through every corridor of life, be it public life or in our personal lives. Religion has been torn from the public square (theoretically) and relegated to some place in our hearts. **We must regain the biblical vision of reality**. The Bible does not give us separate religious and secular spheres in which the world operates. His law does not simply address matters of private morality and spiritual devotion. His salvation is not an other-worldly salvation. The gospel comes to save us in our totality. It comes to save the nations. It comes to save the law. It comes to save the created order. It comes to save us in our maleness and femaleness.

- Neglecting the actual teachings of Scripture concerning the world, we've adopted the "virtues" of secular thinking and called them holiness or the "way of Jesus". For too many Christians, "Christlikeness" has come to mean something like apologetic, empathetic, and uncertain. The severity and clarity of Jesus in places like John 6-10 are ignored or downplayed. Instead, we have a globalist democratic Jesus adopting therapeutic categories for sin, justice, and righteousness. This is all done in the name of "grace," but it is the end of grace. Grace is terrible and glorious. It names sin and evil with clarity and offers forgiveness and sanctification. As the teaching of God's commands has diminished or disappeared, it has been replaced with a different law. This "law" is governed by feelings and extols the importance of "impact" over intent. We've adopted the values of DEI offices as our standards for righteousness. We've defined the law of love in shallowed therapeutic terms: Love is to do nothing that might elicit negative emotional responses from the object of our love. We must forsake our idolatrous "laws" and trust again the righteousness that comes from Jesus and is taught by the Scriptures. We must learn again that faithful witness and genuine love for our neighbors will often smell like death to them (2 Corinthians 2:15-17)

- Pastors have neglected the hard places. We've tread softly, if at all, in the contested areas - particularly in places that might make us unpopular in a secular city like Denver. We whisper where God shouts. We minimize biblical distinctions where they run afoul of cultural orthodoxies (What exactly does it mean to be a "soft" complementarian?). The net effect is to disciple our people into not knowing what the Bible says concerning these things, how it says them, and why it says them. Many pastors are happy to toe the line on particular biblical positions but fail to teach these things the way the Bible teaches these things and refuse to glory in what the bible glories in. Our task is not to teach the bare husk of what the Bible teaches - merely the concept, but to speak as the Bible speaks. And we must do this where the battle rages most fiercely. These controversies are where the Lordship of Jesus is most contested. It is also likely the places where conversion and discipleship are most opportune.

What we believe will always come out of our fingertips. You and I will live what we truly believe, whatever creedal commitments we make or don't make. The reverse is also true. How you live, navigate the world, and worship week in and week out will shape what you believe. Disobedience to God's word sows unbelief, and that unbelief will grow. It is vitally important that we treat the words of God with blood-earnestness. - every single iota of it. It is a grace-saturated book - grace that forgives and grace that gives life, the real kind. This Word has enough life for your family, your work, and all the glorious ways that the nations of the earth will flourish under the good reign and commands of Jesus.