Thursday, September 7, 2017

Disorderly Behavior

Thursday, September 7, 2017
Perhaps you think we’re saying these things just to defend ourselves.  No, we tell you this as Christ’s servants, and with God as our witness.  Everything we do, dear friends, is to strengthen you.  For I am afraid that when I come I won’t like what I find, and you won’t like my response.  I am afraid that I will find quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorderly behavior.  Yes, I am afraid that when I come again, God will humble me in your presence.  And I will be grieved because many of you have not given up your old sins.  You have not repented of your impurity, sexual immorality, and eagerness for lustful pleasure.  
2 Corinthians 12:19-21(NLT)                 
Paul had heard some pretty disturbing reports about all sorts of issues making a shambles of the church at Corinth.  His letter is drenched in personal humility, but it’s also a somber warning of God’s judgment of sin in the life of church people.
A favorite New Testament professor in seminary used to begin his classes with a tongue-in-cheek liturgy that went like this:
Professor:   Good mornin’ SINNERS!  
Class:  Good mornin’ Saint!
          -- then --
Professor:  Good mornin’ Saints!  
Class:  Good mornin’ SINNER!

The first time I heard that litany I literally Laughed-Out-Loud!  It was funny that a near retirement age professor in a proper seminary setting began the class with foolishness.  But after a few classes the barb on the end of my professor’s hook began to set-in, and I began realizing my teacher’s lesson was, in fact, the apostle Paul driving this warning deep into this would-be preacher’s understanding of who we humans really are. 
This was my teacher’s lesson of Saint and Sinner; in the words of that great opossum philosopher, Pogo: we have met the enemy, and he is us!
This fact is immutably fixed:  all sinners may become saints, but they remain sinners.  While a person can be gloriously saved and released from the penalty of sin, and anticipate going to heaven, the sticky truth is that we still retain Adam’s sinful nature and give-in to that nature.  Succinctly said:  saints sometimes sin!
Now, that is not new knowledge to anyone who has been a Christian for at least five minutes.  That is why John Wesley leaned heavily on this question about whether or not the preachers under his care were going on to perfection.  Wesley wanted them to know they were not above sin, and the battle raging within was to be expected.  And more, what was to be expected from them was to fight that fight, moving ever closer in love to the image of Christ.
This is the Christian fight.  It has never been about choosing the color of church carpet, or policing someone else’s sin; being a Christ-follower is all about waging war on the disorderly behavior rising up in your own soul!

For You Today

We can all benefit daily by answering to the call:
                Hello SAINT!  Fight on, SINNER!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!



[1] Title Image: screen capture from public domain trailer (Strawberry Blonde DVD, Warner Archives edition), via Wikimedia Commons

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