Twenty- and thirty-something evangelical Christians today are an exciting and promising bunch–not because I am one of them. Thanks to some incredible preaching and literature combined with the workings of the Spirit of God, many in my generation seem to really get it. Many of us understand that our primary purpose is to glorify God, that He is more satisfying than any earthly pleasure, and that life is short and is to be spent seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness.
Wonderful symptoms of this reawakening are that the saccharine praise choruses of the 80s and 90s have been replaced by deeper songs of confession and contrition that find hope and joy in the character and nature of God. Traditional Reformed theology with its emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the depravity of man has been more widely embraced. And the empty moralism and legalistic tendencies of the stereotypical fundamentalist church of the mid-twentieth century (no drinking, no dancing, no listening to secular music, etc.) have been traded for a deep dependence on the grace of God.
It is this latter trait of my generation that has raised a few eyebrows. Not so much the dependence on God’s grace, but the shedding of certain traditional behavioral and lifestyle values. Not only do many of us listen to secular music, dance, and drink liberally, but many also wear jeans to church, sport tattoos and piercings, smoke, watch R-rated movies, and cuss freely. Those of us who indulge in these practices see them as licit pleasures to be enjoyed in Christ. We see them as expressions of culture, as issues of style, not issues of sin. For we understand that the heart of sin is idolatry, an exchanging of the truth, beauty, and worth of God for selfish ambition, sexual pleasure, money, material things, human relationships or anything else under the sun. We recognize that our greatest duty is to worship God and that the rest of life will fall into place if we make this our focus.
Theoretically we are right. It is possible to love God and have a cigarette or drink a beer or use a cussword or get a tattoo. The question is, are we really truly loving God when we enjoy these liberties? Obviously, only God knows, since He alone fully searches our hearts. But there are a few things we can consider that may help us determine whether our heart is in the right place. The first is whether our behavior is a stumbling block to others. Most of us are familiar with this principle from Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8-10 and are probably not willfully disregarding it. If we know there is a brother in the room who struggles with alcoholism or thinks beer is from the devil, we wait until he leaves before we pour ourself a cold one.
The second consideration to be made is whether we are harboring a spirit of rebellion or arrogance. Here I am not so optimistic. Our natural tendency is to question and challenge authority. And when we discover any flawed reasonings, worn out traditions, or man made commands held to by our elders, we pride ourselves in not falling into the same errors. When this happens we begin partaking of our liberties simply to spite the older “uptight” generation and to prove that we’re humbler, more broken, and more grace-oriented. Though our parents, pastors or Sunday school teachers aren’t present, our hearts still may be scoffing at them.
The third thing to think about is whether we are imbibing in order to fit in. Are we smoking because we really enjoy cigarettes, or is it just what everybody else is doing? This seems to be one of the biggest weaknesses of my generation–our longing to be cool. This is witnessed by the fact that one of the church’s chief values today is cultural relevancy. How often is this just a cover up for wanting to be accepted? We’re so afraid of being perceived as judgmental, naïve, sheltered, or socially awkward that we jump at the opportunity to demonstrate that we can say #%&@, too. Image matters to us, and that’s OK. But it’s when our preoccupation with image controls us and causes us to get a tattoo that we have a problem. That’s idolatry.
So are we truly loving God when we enjoy things that once were culturally taboo in Christian circles? Maybe. Certainly there are bigger issues that we ought to be concerned with: anger, hatred, deception, lust, selfish ambition, the love of money, etc. But we are called to be holy, pure, and even perfect, so no issue is too small. We ought not be cavalier in engaging in behaviors that our predecessors found abhorrent. Rather, we would do well to say with Paul, “I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted,” and recognize that we are capable of deceiving ourselves and that God will indeed judge our hearts.
nicely done, friend
George that is a healthy look at the generation of the day and shows that the struggle of sin still prevails despite the culture or the age of generation. Humanity has often been about doing things without the thought of motive behind it or that it mattered. We purchase, pursue and partake often without pausing to ask His desire in our lives. Its legalisms twin brother when we give liberty to things just because we can and not because we ought or have considered it before our Lord first. Thanks for helping us take all things captive for His glory. Really good stuff.
Very thoughtful. At first I thought you were giving an out to do what we want, but you weren’t at all. I think the challenge to ask ourselves why we do what we do is very important.
Your former music teacher, cigar enjoyer, bourbon imbiber and still worship leader (don’t forget old and fat) says pretty cool post, but I’m still afraid of needles and won’t get a tatoo
I tend to think that we do these things because we want to. Then we make excuses for why it is okay- thus giving us more freedom to participate in our flesh without guilt to hold us back. And then we take it one step further by finding others who are “like-minded” to further excuse our bad behavior.
It is a sad state of affairs when the believer looks and behaves no different than the non-believer. Does this make us relevant or just plain foolish?