Circle the Wagons

WARNING: Deep concepts follow.

One of the buzz-words among Christian leaders in the last decade is “relevance”. The question is: How do you communicate unchangeable ancient truth to a changing culture? And the communication is not limited to verbal exchange, but to the way we live-out a transformed life in the location of our mission.

The Apostle Paul states relevance this way: “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” (I Corinthians 9:22-23, NIV).

From a desire to honor God with our life, many of us have taken on unnecessary burdens; striving to be holy by an act that originates in our soul (mind, will & emotions). It is the nature of our soul to withdraw from the peripheral characteristics of our society that are in reality spiritually neutral. It’s the “circle-the-wagons” mentality. We want to protect what we really have no power to protect (Isaiah 26:3). This misguided bent is most-often instilled in us through the way we were nurtured (discipled, mentored, and/or parented).

Let’s say you have a baby, and out of a desire to protect the health of your child, you place them in a bubble. This bubble is an amazing feat of medical engineering because it protects the child from all external germs and viruses. Then, at the age of 18, we finally let our socially maladjusted teenager out of the protective bubble. What happens? They die. Their body has not been exposed to germs and viruses in order to build a healthy immune system. Okay, so none of us would go to this extreme, but having been a youth pastor for over a decade, I have witnessed many examples that come close to this in a spiritual sense.

I am not advocating that we must be exposed to acts of sin in order to be immune to temptation. However, spiritual parents (not limited to biological parents) are commanded to train a child. Training is a process of instilling spiritual values, then gradually transferring their dependence upon you until their dependence rests solely upon the Spirit of God in them. Part of this process is allowing them to make spiritual decisions themselves, and coaching them on how to hear their spirit in that decision-making process. This healthy process – though inherently difficult – is meant to create disciples whose outer-person is a mirror of a Christ-centered inner-person. Unfortunately, the default switch in our sin-nature is to do outer-acts of righteousness with the assumption that it will create inner-spiritual vitality, and in turn, instill this method to those we are discipling.

Jesus had a conversation with an outwardly religious man named Nicodemus. He said this: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:6, NIV.) In other words, external works that are driven solely by the flesh (soul/body) will not produce spiritual fruit. Yet when our spirit is in the driver’s seat – motivating our soul to submit and produce righteous behavior – that spirit gives birth to spiritual fruit. In effect, you can have the same righteous act done by two different people (such as evangelism, stewardship, or even ministry), and yet have these behaviors driven from two different sources; spirit vs. soul.

This, in my opinion, is the crux of relevance. Abstaining from engaging our culture driven by legalism makes the message of the cross through our life irrelevant. The reason is that the holiness we embrace is not driven by a pure understanding and release of spirit-driven behavior.

So, because there is absolutely nothing we can do in our own strength to be saved or even holy (it is all fruit of His Spirit in us), the insecurity of our soul drives us to control our environment, giving our flesh the best chance possible to keep God’s commands. This takes us out of the game. It negates our ability to engage in the Great Commission, because, after all, the world God has commanded us to engage is made up of sinful people. I think the irrelevance that circling-the-wagons produces brings comfort to our enemy.

Today, I chose to allow the unchangeable Gospel speak loudly through my life to those my King has called me to engage. I choose NOT to become irrelevant.