While it is always dangerous to judge the heart of someone else, we are called to exercise wisdom in determining who we spend time with. I was reminded of this when I read this verse in Jeremiah.

” . . . you are near in their mouth and far from their heart”

Jeremiah 12:2 (ESV)

I wonder if most believers have experienced this in the church at one time in their lives. We find people whose talk and whose actions seem to be vastly different. What is really difficult is when this type of person is in leadership in the church.

Sure, we all suffer from this gap between our words and our actions. Who among us hasn’t found solace in Paul’s lament in Romans 7 of his inability to live as he knew he ought to live. We are encouraged to know that we are not alone in our sense of falling short of where we’d like to be.

We then take great comfort in Paul’s declaration in Romans 8:1 that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

The goal is to find those who confess the gap and are seeking to allow God to work in their lives to close that gap. You will know this by how they react when confronted with their hypocrisy.

I’m thinking at this time of a painful experience in a previous church. The pastor would say really stupid things like he and his wife never had an argument. He maintained that he had a perfect marriage.

Those of us who have been married know that this could only be the case if one spouse was severely medicated at all times. Put two sentient people in a relationship and sooner or later there will be conflict. So the pastor’s statements about having a perfect marriage were obviously pure nonsense.

And even if it were true, by some amazing miracle, a man who reached such an elevated state of perfection would be of limited use in helping someone like me since he could hardly understand my struggles.

My lament is that I lingered too long in that church thinking that I could make a difference or I could help people in the midst of the confusion. Because the pastor had a skewed view of reality and a huge gap between what he claimed to believe and what he actually practiced, the church became a huge mess, and people were deeply hurt as a result.

So, what am I looking for in a church?

I’m looking for other sinners who know they need lots of grace. I’m looking for people that welcome the broken knowing that only God can make them less broken. I’m looking for those who ache with a desire to close the gap between their belief and their behavior and who are willing to submit to God and their fellow believers for that closure to take place.

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In his book Center Church, Timothy Keller compares the ideas of faithfulness and fruitfulness in ministry.

Those who emphasize faithfulness, point to the accuracy of their teaching and their diligence in presenting scripture as the guide for life and godliness. They point to the fact that regardless of the apparent results, they remain steadfast in proclaiming the truth.

Those who emphasize fruitfulness point to the results of their labor such as attendance, giving, the vibrancy of their worship, etc. The drive for fruitfulness causes everything that is done to be evaluated as to how it impacts the measured results.

This comparison was called to mind when I read Isaiah’s recording of his vision of the throne room of God recorded in Isaiah Chapter 6.

In that vision, Isaiah is overwhelmed by the glory of God to the point where he exclaims:

“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Isaiah 6:5 (ESV)

After the atonement for Isaiah’s sin, he receives his call to ministry to the nation of Israel and exclaims, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)

This is very heady, how cool would it be to get such an amazing call to ministry?

But it is instructive to read the rest of Chapter 6 to see the message that Isaiah is to carry to his people and the response which he is to expect to that message.

Isaiah is called to speak a message to people who will remain deaf and blind to the message he bears to them. He is called to be faithful in the midst of seeming unfruitfulness.

I call it seeming unfruitfulness because we have to be careful as to who defines what fruitfulness looks like. If we have the wrong definition of fruitfulness, we have the potential for getting severely off track in ministry.

I really don’t know the answer to the questions I’m about to pose. I have no idea what the church should look like as we move further into the 21st Century in the United States. It seems to me that it should look vastly different than it did 10, 20, or 50 years ago. It also seems to me that the current emphasis on growing large churches isn’t always producing the desired result of spiritual growth in the people who attend the church.

Should we gauge fruitfulness by Sunday attendance? Do we have some means of measuring spiritual grown our members? Do we know if we are making true disciples of Jesus Christ or just fans who will ride the bandwagon as long as it seems to be getting them where they want to go?

Gathering a crowd is not necessarily indicative of real spiritual growth.

Jesus gathered a large crowd while he entered Jerusalem; the same crowd called for his execution just a few days later. So numbers are clearly not the best gauge of fruitfulness.

Let’s go back to the comparison of faithfulness with fruitfulness. It seems to me that without faithfulness to our Savior and to the accurate presentation of the message of Scripture, very little good will result, no matter what the numbers say.

But on the other hand, faithfulness cannot be an excuse to not do the hard work of showing to the current culture how relevant the gospel continues to be, even in a culture that feels that they have moved on from religion.

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The third of the Ten Commandments says this:

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

Exodus 20:7 (ESV)

Growing up, this commandment was considered satisfied as long as a person didn’t use the words, “God,” “Jesus,” or “Christ” in an oath or curse. While I agree that using these words in curses, exclamations of surprise or expressions of frustration are violations of this command, it seems that the command goes so much deeper.

I have long thought that what God is asking of us in this command is that we don’t do anything to misrepresent His character to those around us.

The Nation of Israel in the Old Testament, and the Church in the New, are called to be a witness to those who surround us. We are called to accurately reflect God’s character to those who are not yet in relationship with him.

Yet, sometimes what happens in churches misrepresents the very God we worship.

I grew up in church systems where harsh (and sometimes abusive) discipline of children, if not encouraged, was certainly tolerated even when it was done by church leaders. I grew up in church systems where external compliance to an arbitrary system of rules was more important than developing a godly character or the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). I grew up in church systems where leaders were more concerned about their own reputations than how they represented the God they claimed to worship.

Basically, I grew up in Church systems that portrayed God as a taskmaster who only cared about external compliance to a set of arbitrary rules and did not actually care about the well-being of those who worship him.

It has taken me years of reflection and counseling to overcome some of the false messages about God that I internalized as a child. Violation of the third command by church leaders caused significant damage to my soul.

Because of the consequences of misrepresenting God, those of us who consider ourselves church leaders should take the third commandment to heart.

Am I, in my words and actions, demonstrating the love of God for the world He created? Do I demonstrate a desire to represent the holiness of God along with his love of humanity? Am I living in a way that brings glory to the God I claim to worship?

Truthfully, the answer to these questions is not always in the affirmative. Like everyone else, I fail in these things and often have a need for repentance.

But my inability to keep the commandment does not nullify it.

In Philippians 3:13, the Apostle Paul writes this:

“. . . forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on . . .”

Philippians 3:13b -14a (ESV)

With the exception of Jesus, there is no one who has gone through life without racking up some regret for past failures or bad choices. I’m not referring to that really bad haircut you once got or the clothing styles that seemed cool at the time but now look downright silly.

We all have stuff in our past that hurts when we remember it.

In the context of Philippians, Paul is writing about things that he has done that would be considered good things. In verse 7, he refers to them as “things that were gain to me.” It is these that Pauls is leaving behind.

But we can also use the same principle for the not-so-good things, they should also be left behind. Neither the good things nor the bad things will change our relationship with Jesus. That relationship is based entirely on grace.

Furthermore, the very nature of the resurrection shows us that God can use even the bad things for his glory.

So while we may not totally forget the failures of the past, we can live knowing that we are not stuck and those failures don’t define us.

In the end, we are not saved by what we do or don’t do, it is our relationship with Jesus that gets us through. He is not going to be the one who reminds you of your failures, it is our Enemy who will do that.

Forgetting what lies behind involves not listening to the lie that your failures define you.

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