Behavior Based Gospel

A Gospel that Sticks from Fuller Youth Institute on Vimeo.

What if the Gospel was only about behavior modification?  What if the Gospel was only about a set of rules and regulations?  But really, what if...

If that were the case, then the Pharisees would have nailed it down perfectly.  There wouldn't have been any need for Jesus or the New Testament.  But don't we often live a behavior based gospel in which church life and following Christ is simply a matter of do's and don'ts?

Furthermore, if the Gospel really was all about changing behavior, we would all fail miserably.  The very essence of the Gospel is that we all fail miserably apart from the saving grace of Christ.  So why don't we live like that's the truth.  We live as if God just wants to do a few minor modifications to our lives when He is really out to transform us into something completely different.  And unfortunately, this seems to be the message we are passing on to teens.  We expect them to act right at church, at home, and school.  We expect them to set goals for life, usually without any spiritual goals, and ultimately to compartmentalize their faith for certain occasions like Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.  Then, we are surprised when all goes wrong.  That's what happens with the story in this video.

Following the Gospel is so much more than a list of rules and regulations.  Anyone can follow a set of rules without agreeing whether or not they are necessary or beneficial.  What if we lived life as if the Gospel was necessary and beneficial?  We wouldn't just behave when the time is right.  We wouldn't just come to church because it's what we ought to do.  We can't afford as a Youth Ministry and church to teach behavior modification.  What we are out to do is to show teens that the Gospel is about grace and transformation.  The Gospel wants the heart, mind, body, and soul.  Until we show students that the Gospel has grabbed our hearts, our minds, our bodies, and our souls, students will continue to compartmentalize their faith.  It will be something used for certain occasions.  It will be something that can be packed away until it is presumably needed or necessary.  If Gospel living doesn't permeate our lives, how can we expect it to permeate theirs?  If Gospel living for us as adults is simply about right behaviors (leaving out grace, transformation, Biblical worldview, eternal perspective, the call to holiness, losing to win, giving up everything to gain even more, etc.), then we are headed toward a Christianity all about management.  You can behave Christian without ever being Christian...

The Gospel moves and chases after us.  The Gospel won't settle for anything less than all of who we are.    So if we believe in the power of the Gospel, why don't we give it all of who we are?  And why do we expect teenagers to get it if we haven't grasped it ourselves?  The Gospel is meant to change all of who we are.  It is about transformation and compassionate living.  It is about leaving everything to follow Christ.  How can we expect teenagers to leave everything for the sake of the Gospel when their faith is compartmentalized and the Gospel they know is only about right behavior and doing church?

"Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." -Romans 12:1-2

Be transformed by the Gospel.

Solitude...

Our society has taught us that true punishment happens in solitude, when we are left to ourselves.  Kids have to go to timeout, teenagers struggle as outcasts, single parents feel completely alone, the worst criminals are given to solitary confinement, and the elderly fear that they will be left alone in a nursing home.  Society has taught us to fear that idea that we could be left alone.  

And so, out of fear, we often move toward noise and crowds.  Next time you walk through the mall or a crowded area, look for people who are alone.  Most of them will either be playing on their phone, reading something, or doing anything to keep from looking like they have been left alone.  The earbuds are the usual tool for deflecting loneliness in teenagers, anything to keep from being condemned to silence.  

So, out of the fear of being left alone, we stay busy.  We lack the kind of solitude that we as Christians need to stay centered.  We need the kind of inner solitude[1] that leads to fulfillment.  Loneliness is inner emptiness, but solitude is inner fulfillment.  If we possess inner solitude it keeps us from the fear of being alone. 

The fear of being alone keeps us from practicing the discipline of solitude.  I think that’s a fair statement, right?  It is for me anyway.  But beyond that fear is something even more difficult for most of us to overcome.  It is that we not only are drawn to crowds, but also to noise.  We simply do not know how to practice silence.  If solitude is the means, then the end would be an encounter where God speaks into our lives and we listen.  But the act of listening (and this is where most of us stumble) involves the absence of speech.  The kind of silence we are talking about is the kind where we hear God.  So to simply refrain from talking without listening to God is not silence.  Our distractions have to be silenced.  Our pride in ourselves has to be silenced.  Our need for self-justification has to be silenced. 

But what does self-justification have to do with solitude.  Richard Foster puts it like this – “One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless.  We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others.  If we are silent, who will take control?  God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him.  Silence is intimately related to trust.”

Solitude is a discipline we must practice.  It is where God does some of his most important work on our souls.  “Every distraction of the body, mind, and spirit must be put into a kind of suspended animation before this deep work of God upon the soul can occur.  It is like an operation in which the anesthetic must take effect before the surgery can be performed.”

So, how crowded and how noisy is your life?  How crowded and noisy is the life of your family?  Jesus purposefully made time for solitude with God (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 6:12, Matthew 14:13, Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35, Mark 6:31, Luke 5:16, Matthew 17:1-9, Matthew 26:36-46).  If he needed solitude (inner fulfillment), how much more do we need to separate ourselves from the noise and crowds of life so we can listen to him speak into our lives?  How much more do teenagers need this solitude as they grow and develop spiritually amidst a world of temptation and mediocrity?

We should know that when we are alone, we are not alone. 

“Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself”  -Teresa of Avila

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[1] For more on the idea of inner solitude, see Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.