A friend and I recently had dinner at a TexMex-style restaurant here in Denton. My friend was in absolute awe of the place. He raved about the over-the-top, stereotypical “Mexican” decor. He marveled at the brightly colored walls, the murals, the dust-catching ceramic figures, the tile mosaics on the tables, the carved and painted chairs, and the abundance of other decorations. Even after we finished the meal he could only comment about the decor. He did not say one word about the food. He was so caught up on the decor that he apparently did not notice the food, which was – well – disappointing and expensive. The owners of this restaurant chain have learned well the fact that most people are less concerned with substance and more concerned with the trappings of the product or event. Unfortunately, many churches have learned this same truth, that if you want to have a big crowd, faith is less important than flair.
This sad truth is one of two closely related concepts that have bothered me for many years. They have been, as we say here in the South, stuck in my craw. Off and on over the past twenty years I have thought about them and read about them and scribbled notes about them, always knowing they were important, always knowing I really did not understand them to the depth I needed to, and always knowing that in spite of my many years as a formally educated believer and pastor I could not apply them. The other of the two related concepts is the issue of what did Jesus meant by “self-denial.” As one of the faithful Sisters in my congregation once said about Jesus’ words in Luke 14:26, “‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.’ (Luke 14:26)”, “we read that verse and know that it should apply to us, but because we don’t know how to apply it, we simply ignore it and go on to something we do understand.” She is right. The concept of self-denial is one we regularly misapply, ignore, or both, and as a consequence even we as believers tend to live shallow lives of “quiet desperation.”
Self-denial is a topic that no believer will ever fully understand until he sees Christ face-to-face in all his glory, but it is still a concept that is essential to our salvation and spiritual well being. It, therefore, demands that we not simply ignore it but seek to understand it with all our hearts. After many years of rolling these ideas around in my head, I have come to at least some understanding of what Jesus meant by self-denial and just how that is related to the concept of substance over form and presentation. Long before the concept of a blog was born, I clearly remember telling a good friend that one day I would write an essay entitled Desperately Seeking Substance. After twenty or so years now, I understand that this issue cannot be addressed in a single essay or, in the more contemporary medium, in a single post to a blog, but I am ready to begin the process of putting on paper, or in bits and bytes, some of my understanding about these issues. I pray that they be a blessing and, perhaps, a general guide in your own quest for self-denial and in finding the “substance of things hoped for.” (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)
If we are honest with ourselves–which we rarely are–we know that there is something missing in our spiritual lives. We do not like to admit it, but we know that in spite of what we want for ourselves and want others to believe about us, the thing we do best is justify our own mediocrity. Paul said, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Corinthians 13:5)” We tend to not examine ourselves spiritually for the same reasons we tend to not examine ourselves physically. We are afraid of what we will find, and we are unwilling to do what we need to do to change our conditions. Yet, examine ourselves we must do. If we do not, we just might fail the test, and it is a test we cannot afford to fail. It is the test that will determine where we spend eternity. That is not a test I am willing to forego.
As I understand it, the test to which Paul refers is in two parts. Here in 2 Corinthians 13 Paul mentions the moral issues he brought up earlier in the letter, specifically that the church in Corinth was tolerating sexual immorality among its members. Certainly, one of the tests of true faith is personal holiness. This is a broad test that deals with many things. It deals with the character of the believer as Jesus described it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), which is a reflection of God’s own character. It deals with joyful obedience to the law which instructs us in how to live before God and with men. It deals with how we act and, more importantly, how we think and respond to the world in which we live. The second area of the test is the power of God in our lives. Briefly, and I will deal with this issue further in a later article, the proof of the gospel in us is that God does what only he can do in our lives. When the disciples of John the Baptist inquired of Jesus if he was the Messiah or not, Jesus answered, “‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.’ (Matthew 11:4-5)” All of these things were things that only God could do and all of these things demonstrate the power of God and Christ over the sinfulness of this world and the consequences of the fall.
Do we pass that test? No. For the most part we do not pass the test, and for the most part we just continue on in our mediocrity. We pretend that all is good. We define faith in our own terms, terms which have lowered the bar to define a believer as one who actively participates in the activities of the contemporary religious organizations in spite of our doctrinal statements to the contrary. We have accepted the superficial for the profound, the form for the substance, the trappings for the truth. Will we be content with what is at best mediocrity, and what is probably abject insufficiency? Lord, may it never be. Most of us know that deep within us there is a small pricking of discontent, a small voice that reminds us that there is more to our faith in Christ than what we have. That small voice of discontent is a great gift from God, for if we will listen to it, it will move us beyond the quiet desperation that dominates us toward a meaningful and fulfilling relationship with the Almighty God.
Where do go from here? Because my goal is edification rather than simply pointing out faults, over the next few weeks I will be looking at this very issue. How do we look for the substance of our faith? The articles posted to this blog on this subject will not be simply a stock series on discipleship. Rather they will be a reflection of my own desire and my own search to stand on the solid rock of Jesus Christ our Lord, and to move beyond my own mediocrity. May it please the Lord to bless the words that will be posted here, and may they be grounded in his word, his character, and his will.
