Aug
23
Right ends, wrong means
Filed Under Christian Living, Family
At July’s Reformed Youth Movement conference, The Rev. Sandy Wilson, senior minister of the Second Presbyterian Church of Memphis, shared the following assessment of what teenagers are offered by the world in its rebellion against God:
- Acceptance through performance
- Popularity through conformity
- Happiness through anaesthesia
- Purpose through selfishness
- Protection through violence
- Provision through dishonesty.
Notice that there is nothing wrong with the ends–God does not hate acceptance, fellowship, happiness, etc. But God hates the aforementioned means–selfishness, violence, pride, etc. All around us we and our children are being told subtly (and not so subtly) that power and money, information and technology, lust and greed, pride and anger, manipulation and management are the ways to get things done. And a clever and determined person can get a lot done by these means. But such is not the way of Christ, who said to Pilate, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here (John 18:36). You can build a kingdom by fighting. The Romans built a most impressive one. But it was not the kingdom of Christ.
We can build our families or church community through many means, and we can get things done. But are we employing God’s means–prayer, humble reliance on the grace of the Holy Spirit, faithfulness to Scripture, putting others ahead of ourselves, suspicion of the world’s paths to ’success’?
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