The Church: A Spiritual Community – 1 Peter 2:4-12
March 5, 2017Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Speaker: Jerry Cisar
In some circles, worldliness is often thought of in terms of things we do. For instance, if someone smokes, listens to certain music, dances, or fill in the blank, they are worldly. Worldliness, however, is much more subtle than that. Worldliness is a subtle way of thinking sown by the enemy of our souls as seeds in our hearts which sprout, grow roots, and bear thorns and burrs.
In our post-enlightenment age, worldliness is that thinking that the truly enlightened person is one who owes no obedience to any external authority, it’s the aspiration to be free and unattached persons who are subject to none and master of all. It is that ideal that requires, in Freudian terms, increasing emancipation from all outside communal authority or social restraint, for any form of social restrain, accordingly, is repression. It’s thinking we can do whatever the heck we want!
The church, by that definition, has become very worldly! We may listen to all the right music, and avoid all the right places, but sadly it is not uncommon for a Christian to think he or she owes nothing to anyone—except Jesus Himself, of course, whom we never actually see, and that we are only called to do what we are comfortable with. Nonsense!
What’s the cure? A full on awareness and embrace of the fact that we are joined together and belong to one another! Recognizing that we are a spiritually united community. This Sunday we begin a series titled, “The Church: A Spiritual Community,” in which we will explore who we are in order to understand how we must therefore live.