Choices for Troubled Times - 1. A Perfect Union

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.   – Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

The 4^th of July, 2020 finds America a very divided nation.  Some regard her as an imperfect union in pursuit of being that “more perfect union.” Others see America as an imperfect union that has failed and that ought to be dissolved and reconstructed according to a new blueprint.  Although both sides should agree that America is far from perfect, it seems that each side has a different approach toward facing the reality all humans are flawed and we live in a fallen world. 

Family Shapes Our Worldview
As a small boy, I looked up to my dad as an example worth following.  I soon learned that he was not a perfect man.  While I was reaching that conclusion, I also learned that dad recognized both his own imperfections and his need to yield to God whom he had come to know by faith as his Heavenly Father. Thankfully, dad taught me by his words, his example, and by the Word of God in the Bible that we both needed the grace, forgiveness, and transforming Spirit of God to direct our lives.  My mother complemented dad in guiding me.  And, what didn’t sink into my “head end,” she applied to my “bottom.”

I believe all children, if they are fortunate to have parents, must learn through disappointment and even pain that dad and mom are not perfect.  At the same time, children are even more fortunate if their imperfect parent or parents can point them to God the Father who is perfect.  Then, as they grow emotionally and spiritually, they will more likely be overcomers, because in spite of both the joy and the pain of this fallen, imperfect world, they are learning to trust in a perfect, loving, Heavenly Father.  It is God’s purpose that, within the sphere of authority known as “family,” loving parents lead children to put their faith and trust in Him.  Then, they can learn to view both their own struggles and this imperfect world from the reality of God’s perspective.

Confusion and Frustration of the Unequipped
Today’s world seems to offer more challenges to children and even adults than my childhood world of the 1950’s and 1960’s.  It was then that I first heard the expression, “God is Dead.”  Now, many believe He IS dead, or at least very distant and uncaring.  Adolescents and adults now march in the streets.  Some participate out of a genuine desire to improve our “imperfect union.”  Other demonstrators have their vision clouded by bitterness and disappointed with their lives, family, and country.  Many of these have not grown up in a home where they could learn to face the reality of an imperfect world while being loved and pointed to God by their parents.  They soon look to others for love and purpose in life—someone to help them make sense of the world—a proper worldview.  As such, they are easily persuaded to join a cause that promises to build a new and perfect world from the world they reject.

Both God’s revelation in the Bible and the records of history testify to the futility of human attempts to form a perfect world.  Powerful empires have risen and fallen throughout history like the timeless rhythm of the ocean tides.  In Psalm 11: 3, the psalmist David asks, If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?  David’s answer, The LORD (“I AM”) is in His holy temple; the LORD’s throne is in heaven; His eyes see, His eyelids test the children of man.

God’s Amazing, Mysterious Plan
God is NOT dead, nor is He uncaring about His creation.  Instead, God has been revealing His eternal plan, partly through what the Scriptures call “mysteries.”  One of these mysteries reveals how God has provided a path to perfect unity among all of humankind.

The Apostle Paul wrote that, God made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him [Christ] with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth (Ephesians 1: 9-10).  Theologians explain that this “mystery” is not something “mysterious” as in a popular mystery novel.  Rather, “mystery” in Scripture means something that cannot be known or understood by human reasoning apart from the revelation by Almighty God. 

The mystery to which Paul refers is also distinct from the one he described in Romans 11: 25.  In that one, God reveals that the nation Israel will have hard hearts… until the full number of Gentiles [non-Jews] comes to Christ.  This mystery clarifies the earlier promise of God to Abraham 2,000 years ago that he would become the father of many nations (Genesis 17: 1-5).  God’s blessing through Israel would eventually extend beyond the Jewish nation to include all nations and ethnicities. 

But the mystery Paul reveals in Ephesians 3: 1-7 and Galatians 3: 26-29 is more wonderful because it goes much deeper to describe the blessed unity within humanity that Christ offers.  Writing to born again Christ-followers, Paul explains (emphasis mine):

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  And all who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.  There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. (Galatians 3: 26-29).

Here, God reveals the mystery that all who profess faith in Christ and receive His forgiveness for their sin are united with Christ spiritually as descendants of Abraham whose merit was based on faith, not good works (Romans 4).  What’s more, if we are heirs with Christ, we are not only citizens of one holy nation (1 Peter 2: 9) regardless of our ethnicity, we are brothers and sisters of one family, joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8: 17)!

If it were not enough that Christ-followers are citizens on one nation and members of one family, we read in Galatians 4: 5-6 we also receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  What an intimate relationship God offers to Caucasians, Blacks, Hispanic Americans, Chinese, and all other ethnicities!   All of us as brothers and sisters in Christ can affectionately call out to God, “Abba! Father!”  or “Daddy Daddy!”

Character Development in God’s Family
Although God has adopted His children into a marvelous unity through Christ, He nevertheless gives us the free will and the responsibility to make this unity our own personally.  First, unless we have been made alive as new creations by faith in Christ, we are neither fellow heirs with Christ nor heirs of anything spiritually.  Earlier, in Ephesians 2, Paul had written that without faith in Christ, we were “dead” (v. 1), “sons of disobedience” (v. 2), “separate from Christ…without hope and without God” (v. 12), “far away” (v. 17), and “strangers and aliens” (v. 19).  But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses.  It is by grace you have been saved…through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God… (Galatians 2: 4-5, 8).

Second, God knows that even Christ-followers must practice spiritual disciplines and reject the tendencies of the old nature which can make war within us (Romans 7: 15-25).  If we have individually surrendered our wills to Christ and are spiritually born again, we must rely on the power of His Holy Spirit to remain in Him (obey Him) so that we can bear fruit that is befitting members of the family of God with Christ as our brother (John 15: 1-17).  Just as the human family is where children can form a sound worldview, so the church is the assembly of believers within which we learn how to show Christ to each other and learn to witness of His Life to the world.  Addressing the church at Ephesus, Paul wrote (emphasis mine),

As a prisoner in the Lord, then, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received: with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, and with diligence to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4: 1-6).

The church, God’s “called out ones,” are called to witness to a troubled world what it means to be completely united in the marvelous ways Paul lists in this passage.  What makes this so beautiful is that God has made it possible through Christ for any person among all of the diversity of the human species to become a brother or sister with Christ!  But, don’t be mistaken, unity in the face of diversity represented by different ethnicity, gender, vocation, socioeconomic group, political persuasion, etc.  requires discipline.  And so, the Scriptures instruct Christ-followers-- with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, and with diligence to preserve the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4: 2-3).  Christ has provided the unity—we are to preserve it by the way we relate to our brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of color, gender, material wealth, etc.

Promising Hope for America and World
Personally, I have been very encouraged by the Scripture above from Ephesians 4: 1-6).  I thank God for convicting me of my need to surrender my will to Christ many years ago, and to receive the Eternal Life of Christ within me, giving me the disposition to want to love and please God through the gift of His righteousness.  But it has been a decades-long, imperfect process in order to grow as a member of the family of God with Jesus Christ as my brother.  Daily, I must commune with Him in prayer and “feed on His Word,” the bread of my spiritual life, without which I go hungry and become selfish.  i must also devote time to worship and serve with my spiritual family members in the life of our church.

One way to please God is to love my neighbor (Mark 12: 31).  The study of unity in the family of God described in this article has encouraged me to want to be a good neighbor to all those who cross my path—both unbelievers and Christ-followers.  Party politics and other human-centered activities, as important as they are, will be no more effective than the content of my character and that of others involved.  If God’s children want to make a difference, we must practice the Apostle Paul’s teaching and exercise humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4: 2).  The resulting unity of spirit which is best learned in our families and among God’s called-out ones, the church, must also be applied in our communities and in our workplaces. 

 Truly, the only hope of America and the world lies with each dedicated Christ-follower choosing to apply these principles as an expression of God’s love working in us.  In subsequent articles in this series, I hope to discuss some of the personal qualities that result when a Christ-follower purposefully seeks to follow Christ and walk as He walked.