Lessons From the Early Church: Don't let stuff get in the way
Read More Looking Up
Read More Upward Glances
I was alone on an island, hungry and miles of paddling away from any help. I had unwisely decided to spend a week of solo beach camping by living off the hook, and I hadn't caught a single fish in days.
I was hungry in a way I had never experienced hunger before.
In a particularly desperate moment, I found myself praying in earnest to the Living God of Heaven for the first time in my life. No one was there to congratulate me for my "beautiful prayer." In fact, it was simple. "God, I am hungry. I need to eat something." It was in that moment that God provided, and in just a few moments, I had a meal on the fire. As I enjoyed the food, I realized what had happened. In the moment I admitted my own inability to feed myself, God provided. I hadn't caught that fish. God had sent it, just like he had done so many times in the Bible. If I couldn't even feed myself unless God gave me food, how could I ever try to work my way into Heaven unless God freely let me in?
That was the day I put my trust in Jesus.
So often in Christian thinking, we compare our modern churches to the first century church as the gold standard of what the church should be. Indeed, there are myriad lessons to learn from, but not every lesson is positive.
Consider, for instance, the church in Laodicea. We know that the letter to the Colossians went to Laodicea some time before 62 AD, and that Laodiceans were facing some of the same problems with Gnosticism as the Colossians. Paul doesn't really seem too critical of the Laodiceans, but somehow the Laodicean Christians managed to find some financial success in the 30 years between their first appearance in Scripture. When Jesus speaks to them himself around 90 AD, he had nothing but critical words to say to them. After threatening to spit them out of his mouth, Jesus accused the Laodicean church, "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Revelation 3:17).
Members of the Laodicean church had come to view themselves as independent of God's divine provision. Recall, that was the attitude first adopted by Satan. They had forgotten that every breath they took happened because God graciously granted it. And if we need God's provision and permission to merely exist, how much more do we need God's grace and supply for everything else?
Many Bible scholars, teachers and commentators have traditionally associated the Laodiceans with the church in America. It is so easy to dilute our dependence on God with the full refrigerators, fast food, social benefits programs and ubiquitous consumerism we currently enjoy in 21st century America. It's easy to give government, capitalism, nonprofit organizations or our own cleverness and hard work credit for the material blessing that begins with and is supplied by God's gracious blessing.
It seems our stuff is what gets in the way of being the kind of church God wants us to be.
Consider the young man who asked Jesus, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" After lying about his own righteousness, Jesus exposes his true deficiency. The rich young man walked away from Jesus when Jesus told him to "sell whatever you have and give to the poor ... and come, take up the cross, and follow Me" (see Mark 10:17-22). His stuff got in the way of his experience with Jesus.
If, when we look at our churches, we find ourselves in the same predicament, what do we do?
Jesus' interaction with this wealthy young man seems strange because so often, Jesus prescribed a heart change rather than a behavior change. Even after the young man walked away, Jesus repeated that people could only be saved by God's power. But Jesus had just told the man to do something he could actually have done himself.
I do not believe it was Jesus' desire for this man to impoverish himself. I don't even think Jesus wants us to sell all our own possessions and give them away. I think his true desire is for us to give up the idea that the things we have are actually ours.
1 Corinthians 4:7 makes the point most eloquently. "What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" Every molecule of the air we breath, the clothes on our backs, the cars we drive, the money in our bank accounts and everything else we think we own belongs to God. He has given it to us temporarily for our use. They are resources God intends for us to use to glorify him.
Instead of prescribing a formula for eternal life, Jesus was exposing a necessary heart change. This man rejected Jesus because he would not accept the invitation to depend on Jesus instead of himself.
It's the same invitation Jesus gave to the Laodiceans. "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see" (Revelation 3:18). The question before the Laodiceans and us alike has almost nothing to do with how much of our stuff we give away. It's a question of where we think we got the stuff in the first place. It's a question of who we depend on for the stuff we actually need.
Tomorrow is Easter. It is the day we celebrate that Jesus accomplished everything for us because we are utterly incapable of saving ourselves. We celebrate our utter dependence on God for eternal life. Let us also celebrate our utter dependence on him for our physical lives as well. After all, we can't even feed ourselves apart from him.