That's Hard!

"If it was easy, everyone would be doing it." Ever hear that? It is meant to encourage you to do the hard thing. I mean to encourage you to do the hard thing.

What hard thing? Things like following Christ. Like doing the right thing. That kind of thing.

I talked to a pastor once about an idea "I came up with". "How about if your church went about making disciples? You know, where the congregation would learn to walk alongside others, teaching them and encouraging them and exhorting them to obey Christ. That kind of thing?" "Oh," he told me (he actually told me), "that's too much work." I would like to encourage you to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (Matt 28:19-20) "That's hard!" Yes ... yes it is. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

The Bible is thick with exhortations against idolatry. Of course, most of it is in regards to those physical idols we think of carved out of stone or wood representing some false god or something. But it's anything at all that substitutes for God. And it is part of our everyday experience. Our idols today are pop singers or power or money or fame or "stuff" or popularity or appreciation or technology or ... it gets to be a long list that even we Christians find acceptable. Here, a little example. Given a choice between preaching the gospel in your neighborhood or keeping peace in your home (you know, "Honey, if you go out there and do that, they'll make our lives uncomfortable here."), which would you choose? If you opt for peace in the home over doing what God commands, you've just identified your idol. At least, one of them. "Little children," John writes, "keep yourselves from idols." (1 John 5:21) "That's hard!" Yes ... yes it is. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Perhaps the most common sin addressed in Scripture, perhaps after this whole idolatry thing, is the sin of sexual immorality. It is everywhere in Scripture. The famed claim that homosexual behavior is an abomination to God (Lev 18:22) is found in a whole pile of commands against all manner of sexual immorality including incest, adultery, and bestiality (Lev 18:6-23). In the letters of Jesus addressed to the seven churches at the end, Thyatira is accused of tolerating a prophetess who is, among other things, "seducing My servants to practice sexual immorality." (Rev 2:20) It is everywhere. It is on the short list of the obvious things that prevents someone from entering the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10) (and on just about every other list of evils people do in Scripture). Fast forward to our time where sexual immorality is considered the norm, even recommended. Unmarried couples living together outside of marriage attend church without batting an eye. Many have bought the whole "It's better to try it out before marrying so you know if it's right" concept. And, of course, there's the whole homosexual sexual immorality thing going on where those who classify themselves as Christians applaud "loving, committed" sexually immoral relationships. Beyond that, it is impossible to turn on the television, drive down the street, or walk through a mall without being bombarded by sexual immorality in the presentations and advertisements of the world around us. Still, we are commanded, "Flee from sexual immorality." (1 Cor 6:18) Paul writes, "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy." (Rom 13:13) "Really, Paul? I mean, that's most of what our world is about. Don't do that? That's hard!" Yes ... yes it is. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

We are exhorted to do things that are hard to do. If they were easy, everyone would be doing them. They're even classified by many as foolish. But we're commanded to "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil 2:12) Yes, it's hard. That's why it's good to remember that "It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Phil 2:13) It's hard, but the alternative is worse. And if God is at work in you, the will and ability are provided by Him. That's why "we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10)