When Santa Clause Rejoices Over Bad Motives

Suggested Reading: Philippians 1:12-20

One of my favorite movies growing up was the original Miracle on 34th Street. If you are familiar with the plot of the movie, Santa Claus gets put on trial (really it's a sanity hearing, but it's treated like a trial).   I'm not too worried about giving away the plot of the movie since it is nearly 80 years old, but at the end of the movie the judge finds a very creative way to declare that the man claiming to be Santa Claus has been recognized by the US government and therefore cannot be declared insane for believing that he is in fact Santa Claus. But while the judge found some decent reasoning to clear good ol' Kris Kringle, the judge's decision wasn't really based on the truth. See, the judge had been pressured by a number of people, his own grandchildren included, that putting Santa in the nuthouse would be a very bad political move. So the judge ended up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. As the movie ends, though, we don't really care about what the judge's reasons were. As audience members, we are just excited that the correct ruling came down and Santa Claus was saved.

I never really thought much about that scenario of being excited that the right thing was done even though the motives were bad until I read this passage in Philippians chapter one recently. The Apostle Paul was writing about how some people were preaching the gospel as a way of kicking Paul while he was down.  In verses 15-17, Paul says, "To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and strife…out of rivalry, not sincerely, seeking to cause me anxiety in my imprisonment" (HCSB). But then in the next verse, Paul adds, "What does it matter? Just that in every way, whether out of false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice" (Phil 1:18, HCSB).

For most of us, that statement doesn't quite compute. Isn't it wrong to preach Christ out of rivalry and envy? Yes. Won't those who accept the gospel be turned off when the hypocritical preacher's true colors come out and all the "good" that was done comes undone? Maybe.  In fact, many major church cover-ups through the centuries have been motivated by the idea that the exposure of frauds will hurt, both, the church as a whole and the individuals who received ministry from a fake. But Paul was much more focused on the big picture than most of us are. Sometimes, we forget that God is so much bigger than all of our petty arguments and rivalries or even than our serious and significant fights. Paul was so convinced that if people came in contact with Jesus, then it really wouldn't matter anymore how they got to him. Paul remembered that God had taken the envy and jealousy of Joseph's brothers, allowed them to sell him into slavery, and then used Joseph's position as a slave to eventually save the entire house of Jacob and the future nation of Israel.

Sometimes, we forget that the word of God is so powerful that it can overwhelm the weaknesses of the messenger and speak straight to a person's heart through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We forget that God's word is so potent that it never returns void (Isaiah 55:11). Paul trusted in the power of the Holy Spirit enough that people getting a chance to hear the gospel, whatever the motives of the speaker, was exciting for him, was something worth rejoicing in.  Scandals might do some limited damage, but the exposure of frauds cannot compete against the persuading and transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

How much do we trust the power of the Holy Spirit? Are we prone to hide sin in the church, thinking that it will be too much to recover from? Are we eager to shut people down when we suspect that their motives may be impure but have no proof of wrongdoing? Let's not cover up sin when it pops up in the church for fear that it will do harm; let's not prevent the Gospel from being preached simply because we are suspicious of some who preach it. Let's, instead, trust that God is bigger than scandals and hypocrites and that the Holy Spirit is capable of convincing people of the truth. Let's remember that our God is so powerful that God can take evil motivations and still shape circumstances for our good and God's glory.

If we can trust the power of the Holy Spirit like Paul did, then we will be able to say with him, "In every way, whether out of false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice."

The Gospel According to Oedipus Rex

Suggested Reading: Galatians 1:1-10 

When I was in college, I had one of those literature professors who literally didn't know what she was talking about. She would tell us one day that the story of Oedipus Rex was the story of a man's relationship with Fate, over which the gods had no control (according to her own words), only to give us a quiz the next day where we were supposed to answer that the story dealt with man's relationship to god because Oedipus's fate was told through Apollo's oracle and therefore it was Apollo's will.  When I called her on it after class, she decided she would change my grade since I apparently cared so much but the other losers who had answered based on her own lecture would just have to deal with it. Another time she tried to convince the class that Paul had founded the church in Rome when his own letter to the Roman church apologized for the fact that he had never been to Rome. Every class, it was something different where she was trying to change the story, change the history, or change her own words. By the end of the semester I was fighting the urge to mumble under my breath throughout the entire class period and skipped once or twice just to avoid damaging my testimony. No, I'm not joking. I just don't do well when people try to change the truth.

In Paul's letter to the Galatians, Paul was defending the Gospel he had preached to the churches in Galatia from the influence of people who wanted to convince Gentile believers that they had to become full-fledged Jews, circumcision included, if they wanted to be saved. Paul did not respond well to their influence. Paul wrote, "I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from Him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to change the good news about the Messiah. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than what we have preached to you, a curse be on him!" (Galatians 1:7-9, HCSB).

Paul wanted the Galatians to remember that any "gospel" which did not rest on the foundation that God saves us by grace through faith because of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection was not, in fact, "good news." And he pointed out that certain people wanted to literally change the Gospel.  We live in a world today where people all around us want to change the Gospel. They don't like the idea that the grace of God, given through Jesus is the only way to be saved (John 14:6) and so they change it. They don't like the idea that certain behaviors and lifestyles are sinful according to God's word, and so, while claiming to accept scripture's authority, they undermine scripture and try to change the Word of God. Other groups want to make the Gospel more exclusive than it is and claim that a person has to speak in tongues in order to be saved, and they change the Gospel. 

In the course of your life, and likely in the course of your week, you will encounter people who want to change the Gospel. When that time comes, will people be amazed that you are so quickly turning away from Him who called you by the grace of Christ or will you stand firm in the truth of the Gospel you have received? Will you abandon the truth you have accepted over the course of your life for the sake of a good sounding argument over the course of a few minutes?

False gospels are presented every day. Will you accept them or hold fast to the truth you believed when Jesus made Himself known to you?

Following Jesus Like the Men in Black

Suggested Reading: Mark 8:28-37

A few years ago, Men in Black III came out. Apparently agent J had to go back in time to save the universe. Of course, if you have seen the first one, you know that Will Smith's character was given a choice when he decided to become a man in black. He could join the force, experience wonders he never knew existed, discover alien life-forms and help save the world. But if he did it would mean giving up his life. The person he had been would cease to exist. For the rest of his life, he would exist as an easily forgettable face, have no friends outside the Men in Black, and sever all ties with anyone he previously knew. He would be giving up his old life in order to get a new life.

Jesus actually warned us that following him would be a very similar experience. In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus told those gathered around him, "If anyone wants to be My follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me and the gospel will save it" (HCSB).  Jesus warned us that in order to follow him we would have to give up our lives and while, sometimes, that means being willing to die, most of the time it means giving up our own plans and desires and expectations for our lives.

Sometimes, we miss out on what it really means to follow Christ because we are too busy hanging on to our own expectations. We are afraid that if we really follow him, we are going to miss out on things that are important to us. We may picture missing out on our dream house because we decide to follow Christ into a low-paying job of service or living life without a spouse because the work we are called to is too dangerous to include a family. We may fear losing friends because we take unpopular stands based on our relationship with God. We may just be scared that we will never achieve our goals because God seems to be leading us everywhere but toward our goals.

But Jesus told us that if we cling too tightly to our lives, to our conceptions of what our life should be, we will lose them anyway. But if we lay them aside for his sake and for the sake of the Gospel, if we decide to embrace the new life that Christ has called us to, even if it is very different from what we think we want, we will discover life in the truest sense of the word. "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me and the gospel will save it."

Have you been holding out on Jesus, afraid to give him total control because it might mean being somewhere or doing something you don't want? Have your clung to your own expectations for your life and become miserable because God doesn't seem to be leading you where you want him to? Try laying your life aside and embracing the life that Jesus offers in its place. It may not be what you expected but it will ultimately be better than what you wanted for yourself.