Evangelical Reformation

For some people it is money, for others it is power that motivates them. They seem to go together, so that if you get one, you will have the other.

The bad news for many believers is that we have neither. The first Beatitude deals with riches: You don’t own anything, so don’t act like you do. Be poor in spirit. The third Beatitude addressed the power side of the issue. “Blessed are the meek.”

We have been told since childhood that meekness is not weakness, but we have not been told what meekness is. Whatever it is, Christ exemplified it, because He said, “I am meek and lowly in heart.”

As we consider the life of Christ, we quickly notice that He displayed a strong personality in dealing with everyone—His disciples, the Pharisees, Pilate, even those who came to arrest Him in the garden. Therefore, apparently meekness is not weakness in the sense that it does not exclude strength of personality.

However, it is weakness in the sense of not exercising power to advance our own agenda. Christ could have called on twelve legions of angels to extricate Him from the hands of His captors. He chose not to do so because this was not His Father’s agenda.

We find that this was Jesus’ modus operandi throughout His earthly ministry. He could have established His kingdom at any point, yet He refrained from the exercise of His power to this end. This is the essence of meekness. Jesus symbolized this by entering Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a horse. The horse would have presented Him as conqueror. The mule presented Him as a servant.

James and John did not catch the vision regarding meekness, as evidenced by their recommendation that Jesus call down fire on the Samaritan village that refused them hospitality. Likewise with the disciples, who desired to be awarded the preeminent position within the group so that they might exercise power over the others.

We must understand that there is nothing wrong with the exercise of power per se. Meekness restricts us from using it for our own ends. For example, it is legitimate for a person in authority in government or business to exercise power to fulfill his responsibilities. Some day Jesus will exercise that power. Some day He will enter Jerusalem on a horse.

The line between exercising power for our own agenda and the legitimate exercise to fulfill our responsibilities can easily become blurred. In fact, the capacity of our hearts to be deceptive makes it difficult for us to determine our own intent, even when we are seeking to be honest. Sometimes we think we are riding a mule when in fact we are on our high horse.

Though it is difficult to know our own hearts at times, meekness should at least be our objective. The problem is that we tend not to make this our objective. For example, how many parents teach their children meekness? The trend, rather, is to teach assertiveness, which goes beyond being a strong personality to pushing my agenda.

We have many evangelical psychologists and pastors encouraging this trend—teaching horsemanship rather than mule riding. And we have learned well. We have a lot of horse riding in our homes and churches. Trading in our horses for mules might start an evangelical reformation.

One of the ultimate sins in our society is to live in denial. We are called to be honest with ourselves about almost everything: our anger, our grief, our …. Come to think of it, this honesty that we are called to is usually about our feelings and tends to be self-centered.

However, one real issue about ourselves that contemporary society calls us to deny is our sin. The message conveyed is that guilt is always bad, without ever considering whether we are guilty.

We find parents, even evangelical parents, maintaining this attitude regarding their children. If the school attempts to discipline their child, they believe that it is their God-given responsibility to rise up in righteous indignation and defend their child before the accuser. Gone the days of, “If you get in trouble in school, don’t let me find out about it or you will get it twice as bad when you get home.”

Of course, there is good reason to assert our innocence and that of our children. The prevailing existential philosophy gives us the right to do our own thing. Therefore, by definition it is impossible to do wrong.

Likewise, the prevailing Rogerian psychology asserts that others should accept us unconditionally. Therefore, if they accuse us, they are the ones failing in their roles as significant other.

Likewise, the prevailing Rogerian psychology also asserts that we should accept ourselves unconditionally—maintain non-performance-based self-esteem. Therefore, the only real wrong we can commit is feeling guilty.

Likewise, evangelical theology asserts that God accepts us unconditionally, removing any basis for guilt. And if anyone dare judge us, it is evident that they are the sinners. Not us.

Consequently, our society has freed us from guilt without dealing with our sin. The contemporary beatitude might pronounce: “Blessed are the self-righteous.”

Jesus, by way of contrast, taught, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Mourning in Scripture frequently refers to mourning over our sin. For example, James 4:8-10 exhorts: Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” Likewise, in the Beatitude Jesus was calling us to mourn over our sins.

The comfort that Jesus promises as a results from such mourning is found in forgiveness of sin. Recall Jesus’ story in Luke 18:9ff of the Pharisee and tax-collector praying, one self-righteous and the other broken over his sin. Jesus concluded regarding the penitent tax-collector: “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other.”

The best therapy for our society, including the evangelical community, would be to weep over our sin and experience the comfort of God’s forgiveness. This, and not denial, is the biblical approach to dealing with guilt. And doing so might start an evangelical reformation.

Is Donald Trump a success or Oprah or Payton Manning? How do we tell? Jesus provides the answer in question form in Matthew 16:26: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Ultimately success is landing in heaven and failure is, as Jesus described the plight of the rich man, opening our eyes in hell.

We get into this answer at funerals, but most of the time we are too preoccupied with the things of this life to be think about it. It seems that there were eras, e.g. the Middle Ages, when awareness of heaven and hell was a major, ongoing concern for people. Today, with Lord of the Rings, Monday Night Football, getting the kids to gymnastics, and two working spouses, who has time to think about heaven or hell.

And besides, in our existential psyche, everyone’s sure that they will make it just fine. I feel really good about me. I can’t understand why God shouldn’t. Our issue is whether or not we should be angry with God. We have no doubt that He thinks we are special.

And for evangelicals, we’ve all prayed the prayer, even if it was thirty years and two affairs ago. So we know that we’re good to go. We might fight in church like cats and dogs, but that does not diminish our confidence that we are heaven bound. In the words of the old poem: “Living with the saints above, O that will be glory. But living with the saints below, that’s another story.”

Matthew 5:3 sheds a little biblical realism on the topic, telling us who will occupy heaven. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for of them is the kingdom of heaven.” The standard translation, “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” is misleading. The literal translation, “of them is the kingdom of heaven,” is not telling the poor in spirit that they will own heaven—it will be theirs, but that it will be made up of them—they will be its constituency.

Therefore, Matthew 5:3 is telling us that heaven will be peopled by the poor in spirit, those who view themselves as owning nothing, but assess and use all that they have as belonging to God, those who allow this personal poverty to shape their attitudes and actions toward others. In other words, poverty in spirit is a requisite for entrance to heaven.

Am I saying that the gospel includes more than praying the prayer, of asking Jesus into our hearts? Actually, it was Jesus who said, “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:33)

Some have tried to dodge the implication of this and similar verses by distinguishing between believers and disciples. The entrance requirements for heaven are lower, but to earn the merit badge for discipleship requires more. Serious exegesis disproves this interpretation.

This was the message of Jesus to the rich, young ruler who asked how he might have eternal life. “Go and sell all that you have and give to the poor.” Jesus commanded him to do this because He knew that he was not poor in spirit, that he was still seeing his possessions as belonging to him. The man’s response manifested this idol in his heart.

The fact is that saving faith includes seeing Jesus as God, as El Elyon (Gen. 14:19), the creator and owner, and ourselves as His servants. Genuine saving faith makes us poor in spirit, causes us to divest ourselves of who we are and what we have so like the camel, we are able to fit through the eye of the needle.

In Revelation 3:17 we find the church of Laodicea boasting, “I am rich and have need of nothing.” Poverty of spirit not only will get us into heaven but also would produce an evangelical reformation.