Some Christians think that because they love those that like them, they are being Christlike. And probably they are. In fact, some Christians outside of Christ would be unkind even to those that like them—they would give evil for good. They are rascals. I was one of those rascals before Christ. That is a change that the gospel makes in us.
But that’s the low hanging fruit of sanctification. Jesus said that even unbelievers love those that love them (Luke 6:32). It’s not that hard.
It’s much more difficult to be Christlike with those that dislike us.
Once I saw a social media post where some friends in a ministry I love were slandered quite unjustly. I knew all the players on both sides of the issue. I’m unfortunately thoroughly up to speed on the attacker (and those that commented approvingly) and on those being attacked.
My response? To think angry thoughts towards the poster. And it was easy for me to excuse. I justified it because of their sinful life.
But how quickly my thoughts turn to anger rather than love. How quickly I become defensive of the people I love (or myself) with nary a thought of praying for the attacker. In these situations the Spirit has used Romans 12 to convict me many times.
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Rom 12:17–21 (ESV)
This is one reason I know I am far, far from becoming like Christ. I find it very difficult to repay good for evil. I don’t have it in me to love my enemies, but Jesus said that is what I must do.
“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27–28 (NASB95)
The next verse tells me to turn the other cheek when someone strikes me and to give him my shirt after he stole my coat. If I cannot pray for those that mistreat me, I won’t ever give away my shirt.
You cannot minister long and well without some that you have tried to help turning on you unjustly. The Apostle Paul had both Demas and Alexander the Coppersmith, John the Apostle had Diotrephes who unjustly accused him, and Jesus had Judas. You and I will not fare any better than they did if we are faithful in ministry.
So… The Spirit brings me to my knees for confession and repentance. I need Christ to change me. Loving enemies is not natural to me. It is not easy to be Christlike. If it were easy, then I really wouldn’t need Christ, would I?
You will have a Diotrephes someday if you don’t have one right now. Will you overcome evil with good? Will your Diotrephes prove how much you still need Christ to change you?
But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:13 (ESV)
Siegfried and Roy made careers out of performing with their white tigers for the entertainment of Las Vegas tourists. And they were unique in that these were dangerous wild animals, and the audience wasn’t separated from these big cats. They performed thousands of times with 1500 people in the audience without incident until a show in 2003 when Roy was mauled and carried off stage by one of the tigers. He never performed again. You can treat tigers like pets, and they certainly did have amazing success with them for decades, but they were still wild animals. Watching the show an audience member could probably have believed that they were just big, impressive house pets. But they were not.
Sin is like that wild tiger.
This image was generated by AI.
I was counseling a man once, and I spent some time in Hebrews 3:13 talking about how our sin deceives us. We need other believers to help us see what we cannot see. He asked why I thought to talk on this, and I told him it’s because his sin deceives him (and my sin deceives me). It’s a regular occurrence for us, and realizing it helps unmask it.
What makes sin’s deception worse is you also conspire with your sin. Your sin is not some outside enemy trying to breach the walls of your heart. It’s in your heart, and you like to live in darkness. We are natural-born hiders. We love having a reputation that we don’t deserve. We love pretending we’re something we are not. So your sin deceives you, but it often has a willing accomplice in you.
So how does our sin deceive us? The author of Hebrews claims it does and that we need other Christians to help us see it. In fact, we need their intervention on a daily basis. But what does that deception look like? Hebrews 3:13 doesn’t get specific, but I believe there are several ways that sin deceives us.
Your Sin Deceives You About Its Existence
You sin in ways that you don’t even know. There are things that are sin in your life, but you don’t know they are there yet. We’ve probably all had this experience when reading God’s Word or hearing a sermon in church—our eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit to a sin that we never saw before. It reminds me of Psalm 19.
Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Psalm 19:12 (ESV)
We have hidden faults that are hidden from us. Sin is happy to hide in plain sight in our lives. It’s happy to hide in the dark in our lives. Sin just loves to hide and make us believe that it’s not there at all.
Your Sin Deceives You About Its Extent
Sin lies to you. Even when you see your sin, your sin is working to deceive you. It’s only admitting what you see. It’s saying, “Nothing else to see here. Keep walking.” So you see your problem with authority at work, but you don’t see it in how you ignore city ordinances about your yard. You are aware of your selfishness in serving around the home, but you don’t see it in your lack of financial generosity. You see how your fear of man has kept you from sharing the gospel, but you don’t see how it has kept you from ministry in the church. You see how your anxiety has made you sick, but you don’t see how it has led you to doubt God’s goodness.
The sin that you do see is far more pervasive and extensive than you know. Your sin has roots throughout your heart. Sin deceives you.
Your Sin Deceives You About Its Seriousness
We downplay our sin. I don’t believe that my sin is that serious. Yours probably is, but I’ve got mine under control.
Sin is always serious. Jesus had to die for it. God’s wrath was justly applied to Jesus for your sin. That means that your light besetting sin is not something that doesn’t matter. It does. And it’s our familiarity with certain sins that probably leads us to downplay how severe they are. If there is an eternal penalty for it, it’s not a mild thing. Sin hides in plain sight by pretending to be docile and meek when it’s actually deadly.
Your sin wants you to think it’s no big deal. Let it live a while longer. Play with it. No! John Owen was right when he said, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” You need to kill it. It is serious.
Your Sin Deceives You About Its Effects or Consequences
This is an especially popular lie of sin in an age when we believe that our sin only affects us. If it’s a private sin, then what harm is it actually doing? The young person soaking up pornography night after night doesn’t see how it distorts his view of people. He no longer loves his neighbor, he only lusts after his neighbor. The husband who silently stews over offenses rather than yelling doesn’t think that the silent treatment harms his family relationships, but it does. His wife and children live fearful and wondering why dad is so mad. Many marriages have seen a creeping distance develop because one or both spouses didn’t think this or that sin was that important. They weren’t relentless in killing sin.
And where sin most lies to us about its effects is in our relationship with God. Our sin pushes us away from intimacy with the One who created us.
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Psalm 66:18 (ESV)
Our sin lets us pretend that everything is fine with God when it is absolutely not fine. This is why some that quit attending church during Covid have said “I’m doing better spiritually now than I was when I was attending church.” That’s not possible (Heb 10:25), but sin is a deceiver. It makes you believe that your sin has had no effect on your closeness with God.
Your Sin Deceives You About Its Danger
This is where sin is most like playing with a wild animal. It’s as if we’re all playing with full grown tigers. Just because the tiger hasn’t turned on us yet doesn’t meant it’s not dangerous. It doesn’t mean it’s not deadly.
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. Prov 5:22 (ESV)
I’ve always imagined sewing thread being wrapped around us one strand at a time as a picture of Prov 5:22. Sure three, four, maybe even eight strands I can break. But even sewing thread wrapped around you enough times will bind you. That’s the danger of sin. It lets you believe that you’re in control while it slowly strangles you. When you finally realize it, it could be too late.
Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount said,
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5:29–30 (ESV)
Your sin is so dangerous according to Jesus, that it requires radical steps to deal with it.
Your sin lies to you. And here’s a prime example of its deception. It’s when you read this entire blog, and you think of others that need to hear this. Not you. You don’t need this, but that other Christian you’re thinking of does.
Is there some sin that you’ve been playing with? Have you been deceived?
God wants you to be holy (1 Peter 1:14-16). Sin is serious. It’s not a trifling matter. Put your sin to death. Kill it or it will kill you.
Disneyland in California has had the slogan of “The Happiest Place on Earth” for years. I’ve never visited Disneyland, but we took our kids to Disney World twice. The first time was when three were in elementary school, and one was in junior high. If you’ve been to a theme park before, you know that you don’t have to wait very long for a child within hearing distance to have a meltdown. On this particular visit whenever we would hear a child losing it around us, I would lean over and whisper in my wife’s ear, This is the happiest place on earth. I thought it was pretty funny, but my wife didn’t seem to agree.
I think about the theological implications of that slogan once in a while. Disney is selling the perfect circumstances to young parents. Imagine you could take your children to a place where everything is carefully curated, presented, and always exactly right. Wouldn’t your children have the best time possible? Well, every screaming child proves that slogan wrong.
How could you not be happy here? 😉
Turns out better circumstances don’t make a better me. The Bible tells us this.
The Perfect Environment Didn’t Prevent Sin (Gen 3:6)
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Gen 3:6 (ESV)
Adam and Eve had the best circumstances ever—far better than anything that Disney can offer—and sin still intruded. So if Adam and Even sinned in the Garden of Eden, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with us—not our environment—that produces sin. And that’s exactly what Scripture teaches.
Your Desires Are Insatiable (Prov 27:20; 30:15-16)
Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man. Prov 27:20 (ESV) The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.” Prov 30:15–16 (ESV)
Our lusts can never be fed enough even when we’re only a few years old. So Disneyland with it’s helpful employees and amazing rides and fun shows cannot satisfy the heart of a five year old—or a 35 year old! All of us want more even after we’ve been given more. What does a child say after opening the last Christmas present? “Is that all?” or “Is there any more?” That child might be more honest about his insatiable desires, but I have them too. “Give and Give” are in my heart; they’re in your counselees’ hearts as well.
What’s Inside of Us Is More Important than What’s Around Us (Mk 7:20-23)
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:20, 23 (ESV)
I really want to believe that if my circumstances were different, I would be different. But it’s just not true. What is going on inside of me is more significant than what is happening around me or to me. No circumstance can guarantee my happiness if my heart is wired for more: more lust, more stuff.
This is a very persuasive lie—that better circumstances would make me better. It shows up in the spouse who imagines that being married to a different person would make him different. It is in the heart of the pastor who dreams that a different church would display his Christlikeness so much easier. It is in the heart of the teenager that believes that she would not respond with anger if she had someone else’s parents. It’s a convincing untruth.
It’s easy to believe this about my own heart, but it’s also easy to believe about my counselees. I will hear terrible stories of tragic sin that make me want to rescue this person. And sometimes I think rescue equals fixing their circumstances.[1]Certainly there are some situations that require immediate intervention: abuse, suicidal ideation, potential criminality, etc. In those cases immediate help is getting the oppressed out of those … Continue reading But most often a person’s greatest need is being rescued from their sin. They need help to please Christ in the middle of their circumstances.
The Happiest Place on Earth? Well it can be anywhere that your heart is satisfied with Christ. Daydreaming about changed circumstances won’t lead to happiness. A changed heart can.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Psalm 17:15 (ESV)
Certainly there are some situations that require immediate intervention: abuse, suicidal ideation, potential criminality, etc. In those cases immediate help is getting the oppressed out of those circumstances.
The church is not only nice, but it’s necessary for a believer’s spiritual growth. And maybe you agree with that as many Christians do, but you’re not sure that the extra step of membership is necessary. It’s true that Scripture doesn’t command membership, but I believe the New Testament assumes it. Here are six evidences—from lesser to greater—that support the principle of church membership.
Local Churches Couldn’t Exist if All Christians Made the Choice Not to Join a Church
Just extrapolate, what would churches look like if all Christians decided not to join? A local church couldn’t conduct ministry; it couldn’t exist.
Before Covid I knew some people that were anti-vaccine for childhood diseases. In other words, they wouldn’t get their kids immunized. Their theory as I understood it was that their child was more likely to get the disease (or have a side effect) through the immunization than they were in normal life. And that was true. Because immunization has been so successful, a child was more likely to get some childhood diseases through the immunization than through normal life. It was a very tiny percentage, but it was possible.
Don’t let the battles over Covid 19 vaccinations inform your understanding of this illustration; hang with me here. Why could some parents choose not to immunize their children against childhood diseases? Because the risks of immunizing seemed greater than the risks of not immunizing. And why did it seem that way? Only because most parents did immunize their children. If all parents made the decision not to immunize their children, then childhood diseases would come back with a vengeance. Some parents could choose not to immunize because they were presuming upon the majority of parents that did immunize.
I believe that some Christians can choose not to be members only because most Christians choose to be members. If all Christians chose not to join churches, then churches couldn’t exist. What would the church look like if everybody made the decision not to be a member? There would be no structure. Could you call a pastor, or own a building, or support missionaries, or vote on a budget? Without some members, churches couldn’t exist.
Church Membership Provides Many More Opportunities to Use Your Gifts (1 Cor 12).
Most churches have some ministries that are open to non-members, but most must be restricted to members. A church cannot have non-members working with children or teens, for example. You can’t have non-members on most committees. You cannot have non-members leading Bible studies—what guidance or authority are they submitted to? A church vouches for the genuine salvation of its members, so if you don’t join, they cannot vouch for you.[1]A student, Mercedez Long, suggested this in an assignment. It would be inappropriate to have non-members whose salvation testimony has not been examined serve in many ministries. The scope of ministries where you can use your gifts is seriously reduced if you don’t join a church, but you are supposed to use your gifts.
1 Cor 12:7 (ESV) To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
God wants you to use your gifts. I believe God wants you to have a wide range of areas where you can use your gifts. Church membership gives you more opportunities to use your spiritual gifts.
Pastors Have to Know Whom to Shepherd (1 Peter 5:2-3)
1 Peter 5:2 (ESV) shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly;
Pastors have to know who’s in and who’s out in order to shepherd the flock. How can a pastor be expected to faithfully shepherd a flock when he can’t know who’s in the flock? Attendance is not enough. People float in and out of attendance pretty freely. And if non-membership is the norm, then there’s no way to know whom to shepherd. A pastor cannot be held responsible if the flock isn’t defined. But pastors are held responsible—they are commanded to shepherd the flock, so the flock must be defined somehow. The obvious way to distinguish one flock from another or one flock from wolves is through membership.
Non-Members Cannot Submit to Pastoral Leadership (Heb 13:17)
Heb 13:17 (ESV) Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Is it possible for non-members to submit to pastors? I don’t think so. A pastor isn’t watching for your soul if you haven’t committed to his flock. And you aren’t submissive to him if you’re not a member. Christians at large that walk through the doors of a church are clearly not expecting to submit to pastoral leadership, and the Bible doesn’t expect them too. All Christians shouldn’t submit to just any elder’s leadership either. So what group should submit to pastoral authority? It has to be those that are part of that specific church. Church membership makes it clear to the Christian that they need to submit to pastoral authority.
The Metaphor of the Body Implies Church Membership (Rom 12:3-5; 1 Cor 12:18–27)
1 Cor 12:27 (ESV) Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Obviously my body parts are members of my physical body. It wouldn’t make sense for my hand to be off by itself somewhere. And it wouldn’t make sense for my hand to come along with me, but not be attached to my body. If my left hand is detached from my arm but in my front shirt pocket, even though it goes everywhere with me, no one would think that my hand was a member of my body. Using this picture it used to be a part of my body, but it’s not now.
Of this passage in 1 Corinthians 12, John Piper says,
Church membership is implied in the metaphor of the body in 1 Corinthians 12:12–31. The original meaning of the word member is member of a body, like hand and foot and eye and ear. That’s the imagery behind the word member in the text. Verse 12: “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
So the question this imagery raises for the local church that Paul is describing in 1 Corinthians 12 is: Who intends to be treated as a hand or foot or eye or ear of this body? There is a unity and organic relationship implied in the imagery of the body. There is something unnatural about a Christian attaching himself to a body of believers and not being a member of the body.[2]http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/how-important-is-church-membership, Accessed on 2/22/2011.
The metaphor of the church as a body only makes sense if church membership is the norm—if church membership exists.
You Can’t Be Dismissed from Something You’re Not in (1 Cor 5:12-13; Mt 18:15-20)
1 Cor 5:12–13 (ESV) For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
The church discipline passages in the New Testament indicate that persistently sinning Christians that refuse to repent are supposed to be dismissed from the church. According to Matthew 18 we ultimately treat the unrepentant Christian as a Gentile and tax collector (Mt 18:17). That means to treat this person as an unbeliever. Are unbelievers allowed in a local church? Of course they are. So dismissing them doesn’t mean keeping them from attending church. It must mean excluding them from the ordinances and serving in the church.
There has to be an outside if there is an inside. So some people are inside the church and some people are outside. Who are those people that are inside? It cannot be simple attendance. If a Christian shows up one Sunday with unrepentant sin, a church doesn’t have the responsibility of pursuing church discipline just because they attended. So if it’s not attendance, how do we distinguish between those inside and those outside? Membership is the obvious criteria. Without membership existing, those church discipline passages just don’t make sense.
So, are you a member of a local church? I hope so. It’s for God’s glory, your good, and even your neighbor’s good. Pursue church membership. Every believer needs it.
For five summers during and after college I worked at a Christian camp in northern Wisconsin. The staff were mainly other single college kids like me, and we had plenty of energy by the weekend. One time a friend and I came across an old mining cave in a town not far from the camp. The fact that it had a fence around it with a No Trespassing sign just made it more tempting to us. It wasn’t a huge cave; it went in probably 50 feet, but it was a neat find that had an element of danger to it that was attractive to two young men.
My friend, Will, and I came up with a plan for showing some fellow camp counselors the cave on the next weekend and making it even more exciting. We decided we’d bring four or five female staff members there and stage a hold up with some guy staff members playing the role of hoodlums. To say this was not wise is an understatement; however, at the time it seemed like a surefire, exciting experience for us.
The first indication that this wasn’t a good idea was that several of the girls didn’t like the idea of climbing a barb wire fence with a No Trespassing sign on it. We convinced them it was okay and kept going into the cave. A second indication was just inside the entrance there was a huge boulder that wasn’t there the first time we came. It fell out of the ceiling in the intervening time! But we pressed on.
Soon our friends came into the cave behind us with ski masks on and started threatening Will and me. I was further in the cave and coincidentally had my girlfriend on one side and my ex-girlfriend on the other side of me. Both grabbed my closest arm, and they were both crying. My ex was whispering, “Dear Jesus please protect us” over and over and over. My girlfriend was shaking which I mistook at the time for sobbing. This was when it finally dawned on me that this was a dumb idea. I literally had no idea up to that point that some girls’ greatest fear is being assaulted.
The “hoodlums” demanded money and pushed Will around. At that point my girlfriend grabbed the stocking cap off of one of them and said, “Is this Danny?” What I thought was my girlfriend sobbing was actually her stifling giggles.[1]That girlfriend eventually became my wife and has been for 30 years. 🙂 But she was the only one. The rest of the girls did not forgive Will and me for quite a while.
That was a foolish idea from beginning to end. It was illegal (climbing over the fence), unsafe physically, unsafe emotionally, and unkind.
You know what Will and I didn’t do? We didn’t run this idea past our Camp Director, or Program Director, or really anyone that might have told us no. Why? Well we really didn’t want to hear anyone that would push back on our idea. We didn’t want to listen. We had a week to plan this, and at no time did we ask a more mature person what they thought of this idea.
There’s one chief characteristic of the wise person over the foolish person in the Book of Proverbs, and it’s simply this: wise people listen. Foolish people don’t listen. You can really summarize Proverbs that way. A wise son or daughter listens. That is taught by how often Solomon tells his sons to hear him. [2]All passages from the ESV.
Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching…. Prov 1:8
My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Prov 4:20 (cf. 4:1, 10; 5:1; 5:7; 7:24; 23:19)
We’re taught this when wisdom is personified in chapter eight and tells the naive to hear her.
Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, Prov 8:6
Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. Prov 8:34
We’re taught this truth generally.
The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Prov 15:31
Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, Prov 22:17 (cf. 23:9; 25:12)
But most clearly it’s taught when fools and wise people are contrasted.
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. Prov 12:15
A wise son hears his father’s instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. Prov 13:1
There are other marks of wisdom in Proverbs—the fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom for example (Prov 1:7). But the primary mark is a wise person listens.
It’s easy for us forget this simple lesson. Give me a little ministry success, a little success in my family, maybe some actual spiritual growth over a besetting sin, and I start to think that I don’t have to listen. I can become less teachable. Not really unteachable, but I’m less teachable. I start to pick and choose whom I hear. Those that I think are spiritually less than me I ignore. I think “What could they teach me?” I become more defensive. I don’t hear rebukes (Prov 13:1) because I don’t think I could need them.
Are you in a spiritual place where you can listen to others? The foolish son doesn’t listen. Neither does the foolish parent. He’s condescending to those that share truth with him. Heed the Book of Proverbs. You must be a person that hears wisdom, that seeks for wisdom. Be a listener; be teachable, and you will also be wise.
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding…. Prov 2:1–6
