The last few days, on my way back from class, as I have been soaking up the sun or avoiding puddles from the rainy day before, an interesting sound has caught my attention. The sound of a preacher, slightly hollow and echo-y as if his voice was reverberating off the rafters of an ancient cathedral or high-ceilinged church, but strangely muted and muffled.
When I turn to look for the source of the odd sound, I find someone sitting in their car, windows rolled up, engrossed in the sermon issuing out of their car stereos, unsuspecting of any observant passerby. Sometimes they’re snacking on a bagel or taking notes with their Bibles propped up on their steering wheel.
Perhaps with the onslaught of chapel makeups, Biola students must use any down time they can scavenge. But the image that comes to mind is the passage in Matthew 6 where Jesus warns His disciples:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven….When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Matt. 6:1, 5-6).
The Christian walk practiced in this way is such a beautiful thing. Not showy, not overly self-conscious, not ostentatious. Of course, there is a corporate, public aspect of our relationship with Christ and with the church, but that flows out of the personal, often private part of our relationship with the Lord.
What irks me is the kind of fabricated, formulaic Christianity that falls into legalism. The Christianity that says, “You’re a good Christian if you read your Bible every day and pray a certain number of hours and only enjoy reading commentaries and so on and so forth.”
Even worse than that is the Christianity that tries to rebel against the perceived hypocrisy of the church, swinging to the other extreme and telling Believers, especially young believers, that the most important part of being a Christian is being “authentic.”
Authentic—while the intention may be honorable—in most cases just means lazy. To feel and experience God without any discipline or accountability means conforming too much with today’s postmodern, secular culture. In our attempt to be "real" we lose everything we stand for.
Ultimately, we experience God’s work in our lives when we study His Word, His written revelation to us, and conform our lives to the pattern that He has set for us, exercising the spiritual disciplines that Believers throughout the centuries have exercised in their own personal and corporate Christian lives, and trusting God with our growth and maturity.
Back to my previous point. Seeing my fellow students sitting in their cars—listening to God’s Word being preached, unaware of others watching them—gave me a great sense of satisfaction and encouragement.
It’s in the secret, still, quiet places that we hear God’s voice most clearly, directing us to how He wants us to work out our salvation, in our inner lives, in our relationships within the Church, and in our interactions with non-Believers.
To be unconcerned with the opinions of others, to be inattentive to our image and focused primarily on how we live out our Christian lives, is a freedom that we as Believers must cling to if we are to impact the world for the Gospel.
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