“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” — G.K. Chesterton
If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ve probably already figured out that the words of Jesus in reference to discipleship are not at all comfortable; they were not given to pacify our flesh with the “spiritual” therapeutic massage of worldly wit and conventional wisdom.
For when Jesus says, “Anyone who loves his father or mother; son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me”, you learn really quick that what he is asking for, as far as our commitment level is concerned, is not for some superficial willingness to do the bare minimum in regard to our religion. No, what he is asking of us is to go a lion’s-leap beyond where our comfort zone is! His words; his teaching, reach into the deep and hidden places of our inner man; they shake us; they wound us; they pin us against the wall of eternity. They, like Jacob wrestling with the angel, won’t let us go.
We can only come to one evident conclusion about the Lord’s teaching on the issue of discipleship that…its character is so evidently divine; its content is so opposite the way men think and His authority is so unyielding and absolute as to indicate the fact that what he was teaching…is in truth, the very voice of the living God. Jesus words are pure divine truth from the lips of the eternal God. Everything He has said has an air of absolute and final divine authority. Nothing of what Jesus taught is subject to debate or emendation.
And because it is so, it has made it difficult for many to hear, understand and accept. For what Jesus taught was absolutely opposite of human thinking, even the thinking of religious people. In fact, the religious Jews of Jesus’ time; even the leaders of religious Jews, the most theologically astute of all, found the teaching of Jesus to be repugnant. They found it offensive. They found it threatening.
And Jesus’ teaching on discipleship invites the same reaction even today. We may find it to be a difficult subject because what Jesus tells us is not borne of ease, comfort and convenience. And in our 21st Century mindset things like difficulty, pain and opposition are seen as detrimental and undesirable. But in Jesus, these realities are in mirrored reverse. They turn a person’s world upside-down. They stand conventional human wisdom on its head. Then as now, they are not politically correct. Nor will they ever be! In fact, they are alien to everything we consider to be true in the world. They run counter to; and are the antithesis of human ideas and human values.
In Jesus’ teaching on discipleship, one question emerges to do battle with our soul. It is this question…
“If you desire to follow Jesus, what price are you willing to pay?”
The collective answer that American Christianity has often given to that question in the last 40 years or so is this, very little to none at all! And from my perspective, that’s the endemic and systemic problem within American churches today; that’s what makes discipleship in America a forgotten road. It’s the fact that we are so used to Christianity being comfortable, convenient and easy that we balk and complain when it’s difficult. When there’s a price to be paid, you can almost literally watch people fade into the background. When it matters; when the fur is about to hit the fan; when faith demands sacrifice…many a Christian is unmistakably absent from among the number of the faithful. When their faith is about to get costly, you can find many retreating into the safety of mediocrity; they quietly slip away, hoping like Peter on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, that no one would recognize them, or call their name.
Chesterton was correct, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Instead, of paying the cost of following Jesus, we’ve opted for a consumeristic brand of Christianity which asks very little of us and allows us to have Jesus without the cross. This is why Marion Aldridge has described the current Christian climate in America as “Wal-Mart® Christianity”. A Christianity where the merchandising is slick, the aisles are wide, the message is comfortable and where the cost of following Jesus is ever cheaper.
But does cross-bearing have any meaning for us in the 21st century? In an atmosphere where, as Americans, we’re free to be Christian with little or no opposition punishing us for worshipping as we desire, does the idea of carrying our cross still mean something? I think it does. There may not be a lethal aspect to bearing the cross as much as in other parts of the world. But the cross even now carries with it, its own special brand of hardship and suffering for those who cling to it. And one can see it clearly in the cross’s continued offense in our world and what happens when Christians shy away from bearing it. Cross-bearing still means something because…
The cross is still as offensive to the world today as it ever was in the days of antiquity.
The most powerful and contemporary example of this reality is the recent controversy surrounding the Christian Musical artist Lauren Daigle.
For those who may not recognize her, Lauren has been a popular addition to the Contemporary Christian Music scene for many years now. However, like many who went before her, she’s branched out to become what is known as a “cross-over artist” seeking a greater audience for her unique musical-style in the secular entertainment industry; being featured on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon.
As you may know, Daigle was asked a question by iHeart radio if she believed that homosexuality was a sin, to which she responded by saying, “I can’t honestly answer that,” Daigle replied. “I have too many people that I love, and they are homosexuals.”
She went on to explain that since she’s not God, she can’t say one way or another. Instead, people should just “read the Bible and find out” for themselves. This was an obvious side-step, a refusal to answer honestly the question put in front of her. By appealing to ignorance, Lauren did what my kids used to do when caught red-handed doing something they knew was wrong. To avoid punishment, they would make the excuse that they didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong in hopes that I would accept this explanation and let them off the hook. Lauren’s appeal to ignorance was just as flimsy.
For her to make such a claim is like saying she doesn’t know what the Bible says about the immorality of murder or what God thinks about idolatry. This was such an obvious attempt to avoid public ridicule from the world she was trying to please. I think Lauren knew this in the split second when the question was asked of her, “Is homosexuality a sin?”. Had she said yes, she knew that any of her new-found worldly popularity would have evaporated. I think what she did was a betrayal to the faith and the God she believes in, but I think it was borne of human weakness. And as much as it disappoints me, I understand it. Like Peter, she bowed to pressure she wasn’t ready for.
For how you answer the question of homosexuality today is a litmus test for political correctness, and if you have the guts to say what the Bible teaches; there’s no public forgiveness. There’s no coming back from that, not if you wish to be a public figure. If you have the audacity to agree with the Bible, you’re done. The powerful forces of popular culture will crucify you; they’ll end your career, bankrupt your bakery’s, marginalize and demonize your person until you beg for mercy. But in the current worldly climate of popular culture, there’s no mercy or tolerance for someone who doesn’t toe the line on this issue. This is why I think Lauren refused to take a stand; but shrank back into the safety of her supposed biblical ignorance.
What perhaps Lauren felt in that moment was the weight of the beam of the cross of Jesus. It’s heavy and it comes with a stigma attached.
For her to say what she knew to be true, would be tantamount to ending her career in the secular entertainment industry just as it was beginning. This was perhaps a price too costly for her to pay. A price she was unwilling to pay which is why, when cornered, she did what so many do when
Demas abandoned Paul during his second imprisonment in Rome for this very reason. It was
Did he do this because he wasn’t truly a believer? Some have postulated this as a possible reason for his defection, just as they have for Lauren Daigle. But Demas shows up in other writings of Paul and is described by him as a fellow-worker in gospel, which seems to suggest that like Timothy and Luke, Demas he was a trusted friend and brother in the faith. Many cannot imagine such a defection from a Christian, which is why they so easily run to pretense as an explanation.
I hear them say, well, they probably were not true believers. But biblical commentary within Scripture itself on the lives of those like Demas, John Mark, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and even the disciples themselves reveal that it is possible for a true believer in moments of weakness to betray the Lord in favor of self-preservation. Such sinfulness does not reveal that one is not a believer, but that one is, in that moment, not living as a disciple. He is not living what he is. As a believer, he’s not willing to remain under the weight of the beam but instead, he does what the disciples did, they run to save their own skin.
The problem is not so much an issue of faith, (although to be ashamed of Jesus is a lack of trust in God to care for us), but it is more a lack of commitment. A lack of agape-love for Jesus. It is the unwillingness to do what does not come naturally to sinful, selfish human beings. Discipleship requires us to hazard our lives; to not count our lives dear unto ourselves, and instead to do what Jesus told us we must do in order to be his disciples in Luke 9:24:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
So what I see in the whole Lauren Daigle controversy is not a woman who’s not truly saved; it’s not evidence of a lack of her genuine conversion, (it could be that, but only God can truly know the actual condition of her heart), but what I see is a lack of cross-bearing. Her unwillingness, for the sake of popularity and financial gain, to bear the stigma of the cross. An unwillingness to take a stand for what God has said is true because she knew that to speak the truth would be personally and professionally painful. Lauren’s not been the first to do so in history.
And let’s not forget, we too, are called to carry the same cross; to bear the same stigma that comes with it. Can you truly say that you’ll do better than she did? Are you prepared to bear in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus? It’s easy to cast a disparaging glance at another’s failure, but how well are you doing in this regard?
Are you ready to carry the weight of the beam?To be ready, we must be willing to do the following:
Stop trying to get the world to like you!
Jesus told us that “if the world hates you, remember, it hated me before it hated you.” To be hated by the world for the Christian is not a new reality. We must recognize this as being true; that it will always be true for it is an irrevocable situation. The world hates the church because of her identification with the Lord it once crucified. The world hates her because the world lives in perpetual spiritual darkness and rebellion against God. Also, because the church is a reflection of godliness which is both convicting and condemning to the world. It hates her because she is bold and intolerant enough to suggest that there is only one way to God; that being through Jesus Christ, and him alone. Knowing this, we must face this reality:
The church is unpopular in the world because the church has always been unpopular!
What will ultimately prove to be the winning factor in the battle that we are engaged in as the church is not going to be found in changing the world’s opinion about us. In other words, our victory over the world is not going to come through improved public relations; it’s not going come because we “make nice” with the world; nor because we’ve hired publicists and public relations specialists to change public perception about us. The world hates us, and it hates us because it hates Him. Accept it and quit trying to win its approval, instead seek to be salt and light in a world of tasteless conformity and darkened depravity.
You must count your life as expendable!
When Jesus said, “if you seek to save your life, you will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake, the same shall find it”, what he meant was that to be a disciple, in the truest sense of the word, means that you cannot follow him and seek to save yourself at the same time. To follow him means that you must take your hands off your life, and instead risk it all for him, even if that means suffering the painful loss of all that you hold dear. You cannot find your life without risking it because everything that’s not given is lost already.
Now, you may say, “I know what you’re saying is true but that’s so hard to do.” My response to you is, “it’s supposed to be.”
I am reminded of the movie, A League of Their Own, in which we are introduced to a fictitious character named Dottie Hinson. Right before the championship game, she decides that living the life of a professional baseball player has asked too much of her and so she decides to quit before the end and return home. The response of her manager, Jimmy Dugan, to her decision is classic and memorable. “It’s supposed to be hard!” He tells her. “If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it! The hard, makes it great!”
Let me just say, the same can be said of the Christian life:
“Following Jesus may be hard; but it’s supposed to be hard! If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it! The hard makes it great!”
This is the weight of the beam…do you feel it?