Connect the Dots

I’ve been listening.  I’ve been listening carefully.  Did you know that there has been an Ogre among you?  Here is what I’ve been hearing.  Children, you must make a decision for Jesus and against sinning.  There is a prayer to pray if you accept Jesus.  Your sins will kill you eventually.   God gives you abundant life, if you will only ask him for it.  The so called “worship leader,” after singing songs about relationships with God, then prays that we should not consider what God has done for us, but rather what God can and will do for our lives now.

And so, after listening to this for a while, I finally have to ask these questions to the youth pastor.  On what grounds do we have music ministry people leading prayers, particularly when their theology is, well, questionable?  If we are not to ask what God did for us, what was the point of the resurrection?  What is your view of original sin?  What does Jesus offer me?  I know you quoted Romans 10:9, but have you read the rest of that book?  Have you ever once talked to the kids about what was in the rest of that book?

First of all, I’m absolutely astonished that singing or banging on drums or strumming a guitar qualifies a person to lead prayer in church.  This is the main corporate worship for many of the kids who show up on Wednesday night.  And we have a music guy leading a prayer.  I’m not suggesting that it isn’t OK for everyone to pray.  What I am suggesting is that perhaps a professional should be leading prayer at a corporate worship.

Next, “don’t be thinking about what God did for us….” What?  Isn’t that the whole point of being Christian?  There was this guy, Jesus, who lived, died and was resurrected from the dead 2000 years ago.  That is in the past.  That was the point.  That is what this whole Christianity thing is all about.  Can I get an “Amen?” And we have a singer praying that our kids should not be thinking about what God did for us in the past?  Let’s run through that again.  Jesus, God incarnate, wholly God and wholly man, condescended to come down from heaven, where He was present in eternity to be incarnate, under the Law, under the curse of Adam, so that He could live the perfect life, to fulfill the Law, to be the perfect sacrifice, to usher in the New Age, the be the first born of the New Covenant in Jesus Himself, to die as a penal substitution for the sins of the believers, of the elect, to die to reconcile us to Himself, to God, to be resurrected, to destroy death, to return to His Heavenly throne, where He sits until that day when He will return in Judgment, on the Last Day, to be the our only mediator and advocate on that Last Day, for our Judgment, a day that would otherwise seal our doom.  What?  That’s not what your worship leader said?  Then he shouldn’t be preaching through prayer.  He’s not qualified.

I promised a friend that I would leave the Arminian thinking alone, so I’ll just skip quickly over the whole idea that we have any hope of seeking God (Romans 3:1-20) and move onto my next topic.  I didn’t really talk about the idea that God is the one who makes the vertical moves possible.  Our vertical moves upward are futile (tower of Babel.)  I won’t mention that justification is a forensic declaration based on the propitiation, atonement and reconciliation, bought for us by Jesus 2000 years ago.  I’ll leave the whole idea that humans are afflicted by the condition of sin, which is far larger problem than any particular sin that I might or might not commit, totally out of this discussion.  I won’t discuss that it isn’t me who chooses God, but God who had chosen me, moving me to faith by the action of the Holy Spirit.  But we aren’t going there this time.

What about sin kills us?  What is abundant life?  Is not death the wage of sin?   Since we are in the condition of sin, we are all doomed to die.  Evidence is available in the local cemetery.  Is abundant life a life of material reward?  Perhaps abundant life is instead the life lived in confidence, in belief in the promise of the resurrection, in faith in the knowledge of the work of Jesus on the Cross for us, completed 2000 years ago, as we live in both the Present Age and the Age to come, citizens of both Ages, both under the curse of Adam, but in knowledge of our salvation in Jesus.

Youth Pastor?  When will you ever connect the dots?  What do we do when the same kids come to altar call four weeks in a row?  Why is that happening?  Do they understand why Jesus had to die on the cross?  Did you tell them that yet?  Did Jesus really have to die for your message?  Really??  This theology we hear every Sunday and ever Wednesday is not the full Gospel.  We are teaching a very small part of the Gospel.  We are stripping the Gospel of its richness and of its vital importance.  We are not connecting the dots.

--Ogre--