Moral foundation (Part 2)
How Can We Rebuild?
Truth is at the center of a moral foundation. You cannot rebuild a moral foundation on relativism or man made truth. If man is creating his own foundation, it cannot stand. Man cannot build a moral foundation; it must be of God or it cannot stand. As long as our leaders are drawing their direction from the common consensus of other leaders, we will continue to erode our biblical foundation and therefore lose our moral foundation. Commentaries, sermons, devotionals and other resources should be looked upon as a tool but never should be the source of our biblical doctrine. The word of God alone determines truth. A teacher can be wrong. Many denominational beliefs are held dear because they were passed down and have become a tradition that is treated as doctrine. Many errors are replicated down to the people who have no biblical understanding from which to determine truth. The church has become man dependent as people look upon their leader as though he was the sole source of revelation. The leader draws from the consensus of the leaders he intermingles with and the Bible is only used when it is in agreement to what the church has predetermined to be the move of God. If there is a contradiction, people accept the new move assuming it is of God and the Bible is rejected.
Most church members are completely oblivious to the great doctrinal shift of the church because they have the lack of knowledge that God has warned us about. Since the Bible warns that the people perish for a lack of knowledge, it stands to reason that our starting point should be to acquire this knowledge that is lacking. The first and foremost step in rebuilding the foundation is knowledge of the word. Without it, you cannot walk in God’s will and you will be tossed by every wind of doctrine based on the popular thought of the moment (Ephesians 4:14). The secret of the church and the Christian life is found in this wonderful passage of scripture. Look at Proverbs 2:1-9
My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, 2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; 3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; 7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; 8 He guards the paths of justice, And preserves the way of His saints. 9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path.
This is the great ‘if’. If you do these things…then you will receive from the Lord. Most people never fulfill the ‘if’ and therefore never receive the promise. Receiving His word is not enough. You must treasure His commands within you and then seek. Seek wisdom, seek understanding, search for the things of God as though they are more valuable than gold, silver and great treasures (and indeed they are). Examine your life and see if you do these things. If you found out that a great treasure was hidden on your property and it was certain to be there, would you search for it? Would you walk around a field and scope out the area to see if anything jumped out to you and then give up if you didn’t find it, or would you get a shovel and start digging?
The great tragedy of the church is that the things of God are looked upon as though they only add slight value to our lives but are not worthy of our energy and resources. Since the average Christian reads less than 15 minutes a week in the scripture, we know that the scriptures are not greatly valued. When gold is found in an area, profiteers will spend millions of dollars researching the area, studying the geology, planning the mining and then setting up equipment. Yet the greatest treasure that will last for eternity is within the grasp of almost every Christian but it sits gathering dust until the next Sunday rolls around.
This is exactly why we are losing both the battle for the culture within the church and without the church. This is also why we are losing the next generation. By a youth’s senior year of high school the vast majority of young men and women have already departed from the church. After their college years the majority of those who did remain will have departed. I had a friend whose daughter was raised in church and even attended Christian schools. After her first semester of college she began to dispute the validity of the scripture. The scripture can easily be refuted if the student has no real foundation from which to examine the questions that are intended to challenge the Bible. Most Christians are taught not to question anything and when they are taken outside of the walls of the safety of the church they cannot stand. They are taught not to question because their teachers do not have answers to give or the doctrine is based on unfounded revelations.
I have met many pastors over the years and have found that in the vast majority of the cases, the pastor’s knowledge of God is not far above the congregations. Most pastors are dependent on others to write their sermons and commentaries to teach them doctrine. What they do not realize is that if they take away all the distractions, seek the Lord through His word and allow the Holy Spirit to speak directly to them, the messages will come. Rather than a theoretical theology that someone else put together, the scriptures will come alive and nothing is more exciting than to see the Spirit working within your own life. When someone else writes your messages, as inspiring as they may be, it pales in comparison to what God reveals to those who seek Him. You don’t have to be a pastor to experience the revelations of God through the word for God has promised to reveal Himself to anyone who will seek Him.
If the teacher, preacher or leader is not seeing God working in their own lives, they have nothing biblical to offer to those they are appointed to lead. You cannot draw from an empty well. The average leader is the middleman who finds a message written by someone else and passes it down to those under them. Since the congregation is spiritually anemic, they cannot stand in a culture that sends a never ending barrage of temptation and persecution. Since the church has no real substance to their faith to offer, temptation appears to be the greater option.
Youth leaders become dependent on entertainment to draw youth because they have little else to offer. Churches are forced to entertain and provide more excitement than the competition in order to attract members. The problem is that each time the excitement becomes old hat the church must find something new in order to keep people interested. Eventually people grow tired of empty entertainment and begin transitioning out of the church and into the culture. When the church has the same focus as the culture, there is very little change needed to transition into the culture. Since there is such a lack of knowledge, churches have become dependent on various materials to provide to teachers so that they have something to offer (though this material is usually doctrinally shallow). If the church invested itself in the Biblical mandate to make disciples, leaders would be raised up that are capable of seeing truth in the scripture and teach those truths to others.
God must Build the Foundation
One foundational principle that you must never lose sight of is that God’s work is God dependent and not based on man’s efforts. This can be difficult for many to understand because God does give us many commands to follow before He will do as He promised. The work we do is an act of obedience based on faith. We are not doing the work of God; we are obeying God because we believe He will do as He said. God has chosen not to allow us to sit by idly while He works, but instead has given us clear directions to test our faith and based on our obedience, He chooses to use us. Look again at Proverbs 2:1-9
My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, 2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; 3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; 7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; 8 He guards the paths of justice, And preserves the way of His saints. 9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path.
God could just give us wisdom, knowledge and understanding without any effort on our part, but He doesn’t. He requires us to obey and then He gives us these things. Do we acquire wisdom from studying? Do we make ourselves understand? Do we do anything? The answers are, No, No, Yes. No we cannot gain wisdom from study and we cannot make ourselves understand; but yes we must do something. The results belong to God; the obedience belongs to man. If you receive His word, treasure up His commandments in your heart so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply what God reveals to you, then you will see God work. If you are disobedient, you will not see God’s promises fulfilled.
You are required to obey out of faith and then God gives you knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Seminary, sermons, and training do not give you true biblical knowledge and cannot give you understanding. It can be a tool to help equip you in many ways, but book knowledge cannot replace seeking the Lord through His word. Ultimately it is the Lord that gives wisdom; it is the Lord that gives understanding; it is the Lord that gives knowledge of His ways. God gives, but not to those who do not seek. God gives us the faith to believe (see Romans 12:3) and unless we respond to Him and act upon that faith God will not fulfill these promises.
There are three foundations: your foundation, the foundation of the church, and the foundation of the culture. The foundation of the culture is either based on human nature or based on the church’s influence in the culture. The church’s foundation is built on the faith of the individual believers. The individual believer’s faith is based on Jesus Christ and knowledge of His word. If any of these three foundations are defective, the culture erodes. God is the builder of each of these foundations. When we allow human nature to shift our lives or culture to another foundation, we will see our lives decay by sin and our culture decay in sin. Jesus said that He will build the church – not man (Matthew 16:18). We have just read in Proverbs that God builds our spiritual foundation so that we can know every good path. The Bible also states that God builds up our culture when we are obedient to His word. Look at Isaiah 58:6-12
6 " Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.' "If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. 11 The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
This is a picture of a culture already in decay. If you read the book of Isaiah, the entire theme of this book is the departure of God’s people from the faith and the judgment coming upon them. In the midst of judgment, God provides a promise that applies to us as well as it did to them. Israel did not heed the warning of scripture and at this point, the church is following the same path. The promise of scripture is that if we obey the commands of God, He will first restore our righteousness and then He will raise up those who will rebuild, restore and repair the foundation of our culture.
This takes us back to the beginning of our study – if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? There is nothing the righteous can do as long as the foundations are in ruins. The only solution is to turn our hearts back to the Lord so that He can rebuild. The foundation cannot be restored without righteousness. Righteousness cannot exist without obedience to the Word. Obedience cannot exist without knowledge of the word. While we cannot do anything about those within the church who claim that basing our faith on the Bible is idolatry, we can repent and turn to God in our own lives. As you seek the Lord and walk obediently, you will be a godly influence on those around you. Your influence may not be welcomed by those in disobedience but this should never be a deterrent to you. Remember the promise God gave Abraham – if ten are found righteous, He will spare the city. Will you be one of the few that are found righteous? Remember the promise and warning of 2 Chronicles 15:2b
The LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.
You cannot expect the Lord to be with you or with the church unless we are walking with Him. You cannot walk in your own ways and expect the Lord to be with you. Lasting change cannot occur without a people whose heart is set on obedience to the word of God. You can begin by setting your heart to seek the Lord and seek the word as if it is the greatest treasure of your life. As God reveals His word to you, put your heart on applying the word to your life and presenting the truth to others. If you are called names, do not allow yourself to be intimidated. Jesus said not to cast your pearls before swine. If someone rejects the value of the word, move on to the next person. Remember that it is God who is responsible for the results; our role is obedience.
You cannot force anyone into obedience to the word of God. You cannot restore order by laws. You cannot change man’s behavior by external control. You cannot regain control of a nation through politics. You must put your trust in God and walk in obedience knowing that God will raise up those who will restore, rebuild and repair. You cannot force repentance; you can only walk in repentance. Your focus should be first on your own individual life and obedience to God. Live by 2 Chronicles 16:9
For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is completely His.
If you compartmentalize your life, you will not see the strength of the Lord in your life. If you have a church life that pretends righteousness and a private life that dishonors God, you are not completely His. If your work life contradicts your spiritual life, you are not completely His. Surrender every area of your life to Him and you will truly experience the power of God. Once you experience God, you will have a foundation from which to offer true discipleship to others. The church will not be built without the obedience of people like you. The faithfulness of the church to God begins with you. The prayer of the those who reject the word are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 28:9); however, the prayer of the righteous accomplishes much (James 5:16). If you walk contrary to God, all the prayers you can offer will accomplish nothing; however, if you walk in righteousness then you can have the confidence that God hears your prayers and will use you and your prayers to accomplish His great work in your own life and then in the culture around you.
Seek His word, apply His word, and walk in God’s ways so that God can bless you and restore the moral foundation of the culture around you. God has given you the power to affect change in your church and the world around you. Your obedience is essential. If you walk in accordance to His word, God will honor your faithfulness.
Eddie Snipes
Author of Simple Faith
Exchanged Life Outreach
http://www.exchangedlife.com
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