July 10, 2015
Pleasing to God
In a side bar to his sermon
the pastor said, “Some people think we can let God down … we can’t let God down
because we were never holding Him up. He is holding us up.” I understand what
the pastor was trying to say. However, there is an element of Christianity where
we strive to please God and when we fall short we feel we have in some way let
Him down. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but
of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because
anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men” (Ro
14:17-18 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----For parlor tricks and such the error of ambiguity is in proper place. But preaching from the pulpit must carefully consider every deliberate use of logical error before “putting it out there”. I am glad to say that preachers don’t rise to the politicians’ level of trumping reason with rhetoric, but they sometimes threaten to take that prize. Here we find a perfect example.
-----”…we can let God down…” is to suggest we can do to Him the same we daily do to our precious spouses (should be spice: two mouses are mice, two spouses should be spice. And if two gooses are geese, two mooses should be meese. And does that mean fleece is actually a bunch of floss? So when we‘ve gotten fleeced, have we really been flossed?) We let people down when we don’t do what we say we would do, or do what we say we wouldn’t. I’ve lived around my beloved long enough to know she also knows things I’ve meant to do, intended to do, yea, told her I would do for her many times before and have daily not done them. The fact that she is completely not surprised at my failure to do them does not mean she has not been let down. The fact that she lovingly forgives me for being such a failure does not mean she has not been let down. The fact that she has come to find other comforts and joys in the place of those things I’ve not done, and has even completely forgotten I said I would do them, actually means I have let her down worse. Do we let God down? Darn tootin’ we do! Observing our relationship with Him carefully and categorically, most of what we do in it to Him is letting Him down. We could always do things better than we have done them. Most of what He does in it to us is forgiving. Kind of made in heaven, that relationship is, huh?! We will be perfect. But He will even have to do that for us, too.
-----But that we let Him down has nothing to do with the fact we do not hold Him up, as in we never made Him God, nor did we give Him His power, nor do we affect His keeping that power. He is no straw dummy needing anyone to hold Him up. He just is up. Or if that’s a bit hard to thoroughly mull over, He holds Himself up.
-----“Letting down” and “holding up” are metaphors. Just because the literal concepts of “up” and “down” are rationally linked does not mean the metaphorical concepts proceeding from each are so linked. But this is the connective trick the pastor’s made. Context supplies the sense of any metaphorical usages, and therefore, the rational connection between any two or more. Beware of those sidebars; they come with little context of their own; they draw off context yet hanging in the air. They are handy manipulators.
----- That we can not empower God has absolutely nothing to do with our penchant to letting Him down. This preacher is embarrassing to anyone who desires to both know the Lord and love His pathway to truth. Some of that pathway is merely blazed by the Holy Spirit. I understand what this preacher meant because of the Spirit’s blazing. But some of the pathway is left for man to figure out. Figuring out stuff is a logical thing. “Come, let us reason together,” God said. He didn’t say, “Come, let’s play ambiguity games with metaphors.”
-----Many scoffers are very intelligent people. Of course, their intelligence does not overcome their scoffing, because they are also fools. But it is from their foolishness they have not been able to set aside such irrationality spewed from pulpits in cutesy rhetoric. So they get the impression Christianity is built upon a floating raft of unreasonable bloviating. That assumption is sadly, badly wrong. Nothing is more rational or gloriously intelligent as Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and our walk into that light. Preachers who keep painting the Gospel stupid with their irrational rhetoric piss me off. And I think they let God down a little bit, too.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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