Where's the Power?

A recent article in Christianity Today by Ronald J. Sider, professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, gives an excellent primer on an issue that has been of utmost concern to me for years. While affirming the life-changing power of God through Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we find that very few life-changes are actually taking place among professing Christians.

As Sider reports, "the findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."1 Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers."

What is going on? Here we are, on one hand, professing to be the light-bearers in this world, striving to restore traditional Judeo-Christian values and ethics to the public arena, while on the other hand, we are going out and doing the same things that we decry in others. George Barna says that "every day, the church is becoming more like the world it allegedly seeks to change." Why is this happening? Why aren't we seeing more Christians living out their faith in their lives?

Granted, we know that no one is perfect. We know that we will never approach the holiness of Christ. But, we are called to be holy as He is holy. And we are not.

I think this is because of two things:

1) The Dripping Faucet. Have you ever had a faucet in your house start dripping? When it first starts, that little "drip, drip, drip" just drives you crazy. You vow to fix it, but you forget. It keeps dripping, but over time, you don't notice as much. That little noise that kept you up at night is now just one more part of the night. You don't hear the individual drips and you forget that you have a problem that needs to be corrected.

Similarly, the worldliness of the church is like a dripping faucet. In our individual lives and in our churches, we have let in small problems -- small sins. But, we didn't take the steps to remove this sin from our lives and our churches. Think about it, when was the last time you actually saw a church exercise biblical discipline of members as identified in the New Testament? So, we tolerated the drip. And over time, we forgot about it. It became a part of us. And then the drip got worse and worse and worse to the point where it has infected the entire body of Christ. Anyone ever heard of God's warning about yeast and how just a little yeast can work it's way through the whole dough?

2) The other reason we have this situation in our churches today is because there is no emphasis on personal holiness. There is no emphasis on personal spiritual disciplines. We forget to look for the log in our own eye but condemn the speck in the eye of our neighbor. Jesus told us that we were not to judge others, but that we were to be responsible for our own holiness (understanding, of course, that salvation is not about works but that with salvation comes the responsibility to pick up our cross and follow Him in obedience to His commands). Think about your own life -- can you say that you have increased in holiness from this time last year? Are you walking closer to God this year than last year? Can you point to definite sins in your life that you have started to conquer through the power of the Holy Spirit? Sadly to say, most of us would have to answer with an emphatic, "No!" And that is the problem of the church. We are not trying to live a holy life. We tell others, "we live on grace -- God's grace is sufficient for me," which is true, but only true in part. We need to restore the emphasis on holiness and obedience to God's commands if we truly want to live the life He has called us to live.

So, what's the answer? The church needs to face reality. We need to call a sin a sin and take steps to excise it from our life through the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to quit judging those around us and get our own house in order first by turning to God in obedience to His commands, recognizing that external obedience follows internal transformation. And, we need to institute biblical discipline in our church to help our brothers and sisters in Christ turn away from their sins and turn back to God. When someone joins a church, the body of Christ commits to support and nurture and encourage them. This is one part of that requirement.

You can access Dr. Sider's article by clicking here.