8/5/2009 6:00:00 PM SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON/Deafening beliefs
By REV. DONALD CAVINESS
"So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin." (2 Peter 1:5-9)
For several years now my wife and I have lived in close proximity to our community's local police station and fire department. It recently occurred to me that whereas in the beginning, the sirens and alarms from these two emergency stations typically had a startling effect on us (particularly in the middle of the night), those same blaring sounds now hardly make an impression at all. Over time, we've grown somewhat accustomed to the noise so that it now fails to resonate as it once did. That discovery started me thinking of the spiritual deafness from which many seem to suffer - a deafness that results in a severe difficulty in hearing the gospel and having the sweet sound of that gospel echo in the heart - a deafness that stems from certain deformed beliefs.
David Robertson, a Reformed minister in Scotland, once wrote an article on atheism and atheists. The specific part of his article that shocked me the most was when he discussed the significant number of individuals in the Church that he classified as "functional atheists". He defines these individuals as those who "are cultural Christians who accept belief in God as part of the American culture, but they live as though there were no God." 'Functional Atheists' - that may be a new term for many of you and you may wonder what a functional atheist might look like. Well, you might recognize this individual as he or she who takes comfort in his or her baptism but displays no desire for growth in Christ. In other words, there seems to be an obvious disconnect between the external ceremony of the sacrament and any internal and personal commitment to Christ. You might see this functional atheism in someone who professes faith in Jesus - the same precious faith that you also possess (v.1) - but when you look deeper, you fail to see any of the spiritual qualities of which genuine faith is the mother. And the real problem seems to be some faulty notions or beliefs on their part that has led to a deafness in that they now seem almost incapable of hearing the call of the gospel unto maturity in Christ.
Bear in mind that Peter is addressing believers here - the Church - and felt compelled to exhort them (and us) in these verses to push forward in our pursuit of all the fruit and benefits of our salvation. He strongly urges us against complacency, against a confidence in a weak profession of faith which is, then, unsupported by any resulting longing for the virtues he lists here in this passage.
Genuine faith, Peter writes, will give birth to a moral excellence or goodness in the life of the believer that will be a reflection of God's own good character (v.3). This moral excellence, Peter says, will foster an abiding love for God and a desire to know Him better. We will study His Word and submit ourselves to His teaching. We will also accept His promises made to us, especially those that pertain most specifically to our salvation, the evidence of which will be seen in our practice of self-control, perseverance, and godliness. Exercising self-control, by God's grace and strength, over more and more areas of our life, is an indicator of our heart's alignment with the heart of God. To persevere means to 'remain under' and shows our eagerness to abide in Christ and submit ourselves to His Lordship. A love for godliness indicates one's awareness of the presence of God and our duty to walk as pleasing unto Him. Finally, to these virtues Peter adds just two more, both of which have to do with love. First, he reminds all believers of the expectation that we should love one another in the body of Christ. He calls us 'Philadelphians' - in that we are to love each other as brothers. However, lest we begin to think that our duty stops there, Peter employs the use of the 'agape' word to push us even further, forcing us to acknowledge that Christ expects us to love all men, our enemies as well as our friends.
Yes, there may be those in the Church who are only 'Cultural Christians' or 'Functional Atheists' - individuals who possess a deficient understanding of the tenets of our Faith and have come to satisfy themselves with only a mere façade of Christianity. But as for the rest, Peter exhorts us unto genuine hard labor, in concert with God's Spirit, working to apply in growing measure all the benefits of the atonement of Christ. May each of us be enabled to hear this call and to each of us may it be given the grace and power needed to pursue a lifestyle which matches our profession. God bless you all!
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The Rev. Donald Caviness is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He may be reached at athike1@yahoo.com.
