What Does God Require?

One of my favorite contemporary praise hymns, "The Heart of Worship", acknowledges our failure to attain that which our Lord requires. The refrain declares, “I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song is not what you have required. You search much deeper within, through the ways things appear, you’re looking into my heart….I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made, when it’s all about you, it’s all about you Jesus.” Our faith is all about Jesus. For without His death and resurrection our faith is meaningless. 1 Corinthians 15:14-17, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” When we accept Christ as Savior and Lord, we are made new. Our lives are indelibly altered. We are no longer content to please only ourselves, we want above all else to please our Lord. It is when we continue in our selfish ways and fail to place Him first in our lives that trouble befalls us. We are sinful, selfish creatures that continually fail our Lord and the reason we fall short of God’s expectations, is that we continually place our needs ahead of our Lord.

Our God requires that we worship Him above all else, that we hold Him above our possessions, our identities, our family, and above even ourselves. Our God is a jealous God and when we place the things of this world over Him we do not worship Him, we worship ourselves. Taken from one of the Books excluded from the revised common lectionary; Nahum 1:2-3, “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. 3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.” What of those that see their sexual identities as all important, so important that their identity as LGBTQ takes precedence over our God? What of those misguided churches that betray our God’s law and accept what He has prohibited? Scripture is clear in these matters. When we have the audacity to challenge our God’s law and to place our own opinions above His, we commit the gravest of all sins. We place ourselves, our possessions and our identities as our god. We indeed worship ourselves. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10, “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

We will all be called to testify and stand ready to accept the just reward or punishment for our deeds. 2 Peter 2:4, 9-10, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.” The leadership of the ELCA apparently despises the authority of Scripture, since they falsely proclaim that God is telling them a "new thing", and rewrite God’s law to satisfy their worldly desires. This "new thing" that places love of self over love of our Lord is simply a recipe for disaster. Since the ELCA began promoting love of the secular world, concentrating on social justice instead of the Gospel of Christ, over 1 million have fled this misguided denomination to join churches that place our Lord first in their ministries. The tsumani of congregations leaving continues as the leadership of the ELCA complains that we must remain in fellowship, since our diversity makes us stronger.  When diversity and the things of this world are favored over our Lord's will, it is time to walk away.  We must make certain that the Truth is proclaimed, so that those deceived by these false teachings will have their hearts and minds opened and find their way to the path that our Savior is leading.

You Can't Have it Both Ways

You can’t profess your morality in one particular way and then disregard those beliefs when you don’t want to apply them is a particular situation. To do so would be hypocritical. When one has a set of values that they espouse, those values should hold true, in all circumstances. We cannot abandon our core beliefs if the situation changes or if it is inconvenient for us. If a vegetarian has chosen to forgo the consumption of meat in his or her diet, with the exception that he or she likes to eat bacon, that person is not a true vegetarian. You can’t profess to be strict with your children, yet allow your child to do whatever they please. You can’t be a good example for others when your failings are all too apparent. You can’t say one thing and mean another. Matthew 6:24, Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.“

The ELCA continues to serve two masters. On one hand the ELCA’s Confession of Faith states that this church confesses the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. That Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation. That the proclamation of God's message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written Word of God, inspired by God's Spirit and speaking through their authors, they record and announce God's revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God's Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world. They accept all three creeds and all the confessional writings of the Book of Concord. All is in order in the ELCA, or is it?

But wait, they also accept the doctrine of “bound conscience” which allows one to have their own interpretation of Scripture, as long as they truly believe in their hearts, placing them in authority of Scripture and thereby relegating God’s word to a lesser standing than their own experience and tradition. Others are called to respect their interpretation, even if it is in obvious error. The gospel of affirmation is also acceptable to the ELCA, accepting the belief that God will affirm us within our sin with no need to ask for forgiveness. Universal salvation, the belief that everyone is going to be saved, regardless of faith, is also accepted by the ELCA. Congregations may engage in goddess worship and still maintain their “good standing” with the ELCA. The Lutheran Magazine, the ELCA’s official publication in an April 2008 feature article on Easter, questioned the deity of Jesus Christ and cast doubt upon the Resurrection. Other Essays, published on the ELCA’s website at the Digging Deeper section, since removed for clarification, also casted doubt upon the Virgin Birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The ELCA revels in its’ diversity of opinion and beliefs. Nothing is out of bounds for this misguided denomination.

What is it going to be then? Do we take the ELCA at their word that their confession of faith is placed ahead of their social agenda and drive to be diverse and all accepting, or have they fallen in love with one doctrine while hating the other? Or do the leaders and scholars of the ELCA say one thing, but really believe something else?  Unfortunately for the ELCA there are absolutes in this world. No matter how hard you try or how much you want it to be different, when you add two plus two, the answer will always be four. It would certainly be nice if we could follow any old whim and believe whatever we wanted. But, that is not what our Lord has asked of us. God has given us a number of absolutes and no matter how hard the leaders and scholars of the ELCA proclaim that He is now telling us “something new”, these truths remain. John 3:16-18, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” So, for a church to accept doctrine that denies that faith in the Risen Christ is not necessary to gain our salvation, to accept sinful behavior specifically prohibited by God’s word and to accept those that practice their faith contrary to their stated confession of faith, is not a church at all. For if the absolutes that our Father has placed before us do not matter to this church, this church should not matter to anyone who professes their faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Our Christian family that remains trapped within the ELCA is another matter. We must be diligent in our prayers that more will be rescued from this wayward denomination so that no more fall prey to these false teachings. The salvation of too many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are at risk to simply walk away.