The Stakes Involved in Moral Compromise

The Stakes Involved in Moral Compromise Selections from Ephesians D.L. Deckard May 27, 2012 Up until Friday evening, my intent was to look at the end of 1 Samuel 10 together. Several things have convinced me to make a last minute change. The first is a strand of teaching in the New Testament specifically Ephesians 5 that has created an inward pressure in my soul over the past weeks in the sense that it needs to be said, it needs to be let out. The second is the growing pressure in our country that s in direct opposition to biblical morality. Perhaps the most disturbing of all, however, are the pressures to compromise that are coming from within the Christ-following, Bible-believing church regarding biblical morality. Too, since it s Memorial Day weekend, a time when we remember and honor the ultimate sacrifices that men and women have made to defend and preserve our freedoms (including the freedom to live out our Christianity without hostility), the time seemed right to let what has been brewing, out. The issue at hand, the growing pressure that s in direct opposition to biblical morality is one that you re well aware of, namely, the issue of whether the practice of homosexuality (and we might as well add homosexual marriage to that) is right? Even raising the question may cause the hair on the back of your neck to bristle. However, that doesn t mean we should avoid it. Moreover, let me just say that this message is not about the issue of homosexuality per se. Rather, it s about moral compromise in general. Homosexuality simply pushes the question to the forefront. Too, I also recognize that there may be some who struggle with the temptation of same-sex attraction. I ve had Christian friends who have expressed this temptation to me. If that s you, then I simply want to say that we all face our own temptation areas. The issue before us, however, is not so much about our struggle with sin as it is the re-defining sin. It s a separate (though related) issue. To paint the picture, let me provide a sense of the growing pressure to change our current view of sexual morality. You re all very much aware of our President s comments about homosexual marriage, which have pulled the cork from the already pressurized bottle. As a result, the issue has been catapulted forward in the media. Just over a week ago, the New York Times ran the story about Dr. Robert Spitzer s apology for backing the gay cure earlier in his career. He s now approaching his 80 and has written an official apology. It will appear in journal article later this month. But it concludes with, I believe I owe the gay community an apology. The Times has referred to him as the father of modern psychiatry and, therefore, an influential thinker. 1 It has also come out in the news this week, on the other end of the spectrum, that Marvel Comics plans on bringing out their first gay superhero and a gay wedding in two 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/health/dr-robert-l-spitzer-noted-psychiatrist-apologizes-for-study-on-gay-cure.html? pagewanted=all 1

upcoming issues. DC comics is following suit. 2 In one sense, I don t think most of us are surprised by this. Or if we are, then our heads were in the sand. But the one that caught my eye last week has to do with what s been taking place on the campus of BIOLA university and how the media has focused attention on one of our best evangelical universities. (We have quite a few alums from Biola and a number of students there now from Parkway.) The opening paragraph in the article states: On the same day President Obama became the first U.S. president to come out in support of same-sex marriage, a group of students announced the presence of the "Biola Queer Underground" at this small evangelical university, touching off a highly-charged debate about Christianity and homosexuality. 3 From what I ve read, the university leadership is handling it well. But they are in the middle of a storm. Notice, though, that this pressure comes from within the school not from outside. Now I don t bring this to your attention to alarm you or cause fear. We aren t to fear or panic over these things. Psalm 46 reminds us that, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way. Jesus spoke of massive turmoil among the nations and said, Don t be alarmed. For this must take place (Matt 24:6). The psalmist writes, Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices (Psalm 37:7). So we are not to be alarmed. However we do need to be aware, prepared and praying. And we need to be clear on what s at stake if the church compromises to the pressure. So let me take us in two directions. First, let us clarify the primary purpose of the Church in the world. And second, what s at stake in the church if we compromise the moral standards laid out in Scripture. The gospel and Christianity works from the inside out not the outside in. First, so that we re all clear, let me sketch a brief summary on how the gospel (and Christianity) does and doesn t work. The gospel and Christianity works from the inside out, not the outside in. What I mean by this statement is this. Paul says in Ephesians 1:13 that 13 In him [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13). Salvation began when we heard the news that God, in an unspeakable act of love and grace, took our place in judgment at the cross so that we could be his forgiven, free, approved, and beloved. And as such he has made us heirs of eternal life and a new creation. In a manner of speaking, the Spirit of God germinates that message in the human soul in a way that sprouts a new God-life within us. He starts something new, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:24). At the heart of moral change is an inward new creation by God. One of the best biblical analogies of what this new life does is that of a seed (1 Pet 1:23). New life comes 2 http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/c.jsp;jsessionid=06bd79421d5a10c064d28180e90635d7?item=http%3a%2f %2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Jlifestyle%2fstyle%2farchie- marvel- comics- introduce- openly- gay- characters- as- culture- changes%2f2012%2f05%2f25%2fgjqailstqu_mobile.mobile&cid=578815&spf=1 3 http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/24/11833663- underground- gay- group- emerges- shaking- evangelical- christian- college?lite 2

out of a seed of truth that, like a sprout, begins stretching up toward the light of the sun. It automatically grows up toward the light not down into the darkness. That s new creation life. And as it feeds itself on the good news of all that God is for us in Christ, then a moral transformation begins to grow from the inside out. That s where the moral change comes from. It s how new life works! The moral instruction of Scripture simply shows us in explicit form, which way we are to grow. That s massively important to realize. Our purpose as believers in Jesus is to live and speak this life-changing message so that eternal transformation happens from the inside out working through the will of the person not against it. Why is that important? Because the Christ-following church was never designed to try to force unbelievers to live by biblical morality. In history, when the church put on the hat of moral enforcer, it often resulted in witch-hunts, cleansings and inquisitions leaving some rather dark stains in church history. To try to conform an unbeliever to biblical morality apart from this inward change is like trying to force a dog to be a cat or a flamingo to be an elephant. The world is the way it is because it is so by nature. That, of course, doesn t mean we shouldn t speak up about moral issues. People won t understand the cross if they don t understand sin. It simply means that our primary purpose is to love people, share the gospel and allow the grace of God to change people from the inside out, not the outside in. The state, by contrast, according to Romans 13, is the one that wears the hat of moral enforcer, which is why it bears the sword. It is to uphold moral order, not the church. As participants in the state (as individual believers) who vote and do jury duty, among other things we do wear the state hat when we participate in the governing process. But this is an individual responsibility, not a corporate one. As the church-corporate, we wear a different hat. To confuse the function of the church and state is to forget how the gospel and salvation works from the inside out, not the outside in. Our most effective means of transforming culture as a collective is to live and speak as people changed by all that God is for us in Jesus. To re-define the boundaries of biblical morality puts Christians in eternal danger. Having laid out how Christianity works from the inside out, let me tell you what s at stake in the church if we redefine morality to suit the growing pressures outside and inside the church. Here I take you to Ephesians 5. 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. The positive instruction is to be an imitator of God as a beloved child. That s simply an outworking of the new creation life within. We ve been created after the likeness of God and now we are to go on and become like him. It s the seed of life growing to become like God. And what marks out God s heart is love. Walk in love Paul says, as Christ loved us. 3

Now I think that the worldly pressures that are growing outside and now inside the church to redefine things, would prefer Paul s letter to stop here at walk in love. But the apostle doesn t stop here. He goes on to give a loving but very strong warning. Why? Because, love has boundaries. It has boundaries in marriage, family and society. So, like a concerned father to a child he says, For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of God (Eph 5:5). Did you hear that? He said, you may be sure of this. In other words, make no mistake about it! It s enormously emphatic. Then he goes on to include the sexually immoral category. That would include heterosexual sin as well as homosexual sin 4 any heard-hearted commitment to practice sexual relations outside of marriage. I know that sounds antiquated and old fashioned, but that s because we don t often realize the enormous power that sexuality has to create life and unite souls in unimaginably profound (and sacred) ways. It s like thinking we can play around with nuclear reaction. And Paul s not talking about the Christian who is struggling by grace to overcome sin. We will always battle sin in this life. But we never stop calling it, sin. He s warning us about an approach to the Christian life that is resolved to live outside the moral boundaries of God-like life and love. And notice what s at stake. The kingdom! Eternity is in view. People who commit themselves hard-hearted living outside the sovereign will of God have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Note he s writing to the church, not the world. That makes the stakes in the church as high as possible! Eternity is in view the inheritance. If you want to know what to fear, fear that. Jesus said it well, Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt 10:28). Moreover, to hold and advance a view that one can live however they please and still enter the kingdom is fundamentally unloving toward Christ and his people. It s an unloving view. We are the bride of Jesus (Eph 5:32). He loved us enough to give his life for us to pay for our sin brutally. And we are to love him with a singular love in return. We are married to him. Imagine how marriage would work if the wife was taught to believe that she could live or do whatever she wanted? The marriage would disintegrate! Any approach to being in covenant with Jesus that would teach people that they can live however they want is blatantly ignorant of how marital love works. True Christianity desires to be morally transformed because we love Jesus who so loved us. That s the heart behind it, to love Jesus in the way we conduct ourselves. Moreover, to diminish moral standards within the church is also unloving toward people. If eternity is in view and we aren t able to tell each other, Hey brother, your lifestyle is out of sync with Christ and eternally dangerous, then we have effectively let our brothers and sisters drift toward destruction and trample underfoot the Son of God as Hebrews puts it (Heb 10:29). It s love that compelled Paul to give this warning. And it s love that should compel us to humbly and respectfully keep each other on the path toward the resurrection, the new creation and a firsthand encounter with Jesus in the kingdom. It s eternally dangerous and fundamentally unloving toward Jesus and his people to not remain humbly firm on what it means to walk faithfully, what it means to love. The stakes are 4 For explicit texts on homosexuality, please see 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10. 4

enormous. You don t need to be afraid of the pressure or alarmed by it. But we do need to stand humbly but firmly against these pressures for love s sake, for eternity s sake. To this end, I would like to ask if we could pray for the church and our country this Memorial Day Sunday. Pray for our own hearts as the church of Jesus that we would be humbly yet unswervingly committed ourselves to the teachings of Jesus in the name of love regardless of the temporal cost. And to pray that God might soften the hearts of people in our country to the life-transforming power of the gospel that changes us from the inside out. 5