Reopening is Right, Not About Our Rights

“The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable

and sacred of all human rights.” Thomas Jefferson

“The Father of all vacations.” Now that our three children are all adults, one of the parts that I most miss from their younger years was going on vacation together as a family. Those were some of our most memorable and bonding times as a family. It wasn’t the expense or extravagance, it was being together as a family. Ask them about “a good walk,” and you may see some eye-rolling, hopefully, followed by a grin.

  In the summer of 2002, our family went to Washington, D.C., then to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and finally to New York City and the Statue of Liberty. I love America! I love our heritage! And I’m so thankful that those who came before us willingly shed their blood so that we have the rights that we have, rights like the freedom of religion that so many of our ancestors in Christian history and brothers and sisters around the world do not share. We are truly blessed!

  Across the country one continued protest from many churchgoers during this Pandemic has been, “We must meet! It’s our right!” While I am so thankful that we do have that right as Americans, that’s not why we’re meeting again as a church. It’s not about our “rights.” To me to meet because it’s “our right” is insensitive to the many other Christians around the world who do not have that blessing that we have in this culture and that someday we too may not have.

  We’re gathering together as a local church family because the Bible commands us to and teaches that it’s the right thing to do. Scripture is clear to be lackadaisical about consistently meeting as so many American Christians were prior to this crisis is biblically wrong.

  Please understand (and I can’t say this strongly enough). If with the coronavirus if you’re not comfortable meeting yet or have health concerns that make you hesitant to meet, you should not physically worship with us. Your health and safety is a greater priority. I’m so thankful that we live in a day where we can include those who are in that situation with technology.  

  Yet, much of the anger about not being able to physically meet seemed to be selfishly driven rather than what truly honors our Lord. It was seemingly about, “They closed my religious clubhouse…and I’m mad!”

  A vital part of our DNA at Grace Church is the humble confession that this is not OUR church. It’s the Lord Jesus’ church. We are what the New Testament calls “the Bride of Christ” (Eph. 5:22-33). He bought us and willingly died for us. We belong to King Jesus so it must be all about Him!

  To be candid, it’d be easier to not meet. If it’s about convenience, we could sip coffee and eat Kringle (this is Wisconsin) in our pjs in our family rooms. It can’t be that the worship team, preaching or even the building is so special. There are much better worship “productions” at the click of a keyboard or with the turn of a channel. Why is gathering physically together important? (FYI: These are not in any particular order).

  God wants us to worship Him! That should amaze us! Remember that our awesome God is surrounded by all of the angelic host of heaven. It would be perfect worship. All nature worships God. If we human beings won’t, Jesus said that even the rocks will cry out in praise (Luke 19:4).

  Of all of His creation, it’s staggering that our Heavenly Father longs for us, His Imago Dei, with all of our imperfections, to worship Him. Nothing replaces the beauty of coming together to worship Him with others who also have His Spirit within them through the redeeming work of salvation.

  Worshiping is a response of humble gratitude for His love. Knowing God as He’s revealed to us in Scripture stirs in us a heart of thankfulness expressed in worship that brings Him glory. The Spirit motivates us to long to come together with our brothers and sisters to honor the Savior.

  Coming together is one of the best places to grow spiritually. The focal point of local church ministry is to clearly teach God’s Word. In what’s known as “the Pastoral Epistles” (1 and 2 Timothy & Titus) are overflowing with instruction for churches to make the Scriptures the priority in the church. The pulpit is not the place for political or psychological talks. Pastors are commanded to “preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2). While Christ-followers must study the Word on their own, learning under the sound teaching of church leaders is imperative for one’s spiritual growth (1 Pet. 2:2). There’s something about in-person focused attention surrounded by likeminded believers that makes it more effective.

  It’s the place where we are to use our spiritual gifts. The weekly gathering is God’s avenue for believers to utilize their spiritual gifts. At salvation, God gifts every believer. The local church is the place where believers can and should practice those gifts. The Bible knows nothing of church sitters or spectators who show up for a weekly show. Jesus designed His church to be a place for us to participate together by utilizing our spiritual gifts either in a public setting or privately with other believers. 

  It’s the place where we connect in Christ’s love. The phrase “one another” occurs 100 times in the New Testament. Some 59 of those are specific commands teaching us how to relate to each another. We’re to love, encourage, comfort, pray, forgive each other to name just a few. In our time together the Lord teaches us to love those that in our sinfulness, we’d never like. It’s an ongoing work of His grace. Apart from in-person gatherings, it’s easy to succumb to the Americanization of privatizing our faith or keep it segregated to a small portion of our life.

  God uses our gathering together to reach our world. Jesus said our world will know we’re His disciples by our love for each other. As we love each other, His light shines from our Christ-honoring love. Because it’s so unusual, it draws others to Christ. Everyone is looking for a place to belong. Whether people admit it, they long to be loved. When we commit to fiercely love each other by covering even sins with love and readily forgiving each other, God’s love shines brightly through us. Yes, love can be demonstrated via technology, but it’s not the same. How healthy would a couple’s marriage be if it were only a “technology relationship?”

  God is in control of this Pandemic! It often takes a shaking up of our world to force us to evaluate what’s essential and what’s merely traditional. Technology is here to stay and a tool we should use wisely. In the coming days there will be needed evaluations and with it changes on how churches minister. As the Bible clearly reveals, in-person gatherings at some level are essential. Please pray that we are wise as a church family as we seek to move forward for His glory because this truly is His church!

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

There are no Rights without Responsibility

“No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility.”  Gerald W. Johnson

  Recently, I saw a video clip of a young man arguing with a police officer that the officer didn’t have the “right” to pull him over because the law didn’t make a provision for someone being detained for speeding. In spite of his protests, the clip ended with the officer breaking the car window and pulling the young man out of the vehicle. Somehow I doubt his “right” to not be pulled over, ticketed or arrested will hold up in a court of law.

  Various rights are continually proclaimed in today’s culture. If you listed all the “rights” that are part of the current cultural conversation, you’d fill a page. Yet, it’s very noteworthy that one is hard pressed to find an example of someone demanding their rights in Scripture. While there are a few incidents, they’re rare. The consistent focus of the Bible is on a word virtually unknown today and more rarely seen in action – responsibility.

  The Bible begins with responsibility. Almost as soon as they’d taken their first breath, Adam and Eve are given responsibility: “And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:28). “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Genesis 2:16-17).

  As our world becomes more secular, the emphasis has inverted so that it’s now on rights, yet rarely on responsibility. But are rights without responsibility even possible? What’s been eradicated is the fact that rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. One can’t have one without the other. Every right has a necessary corresponding responsibility.

  A Biblical worldview begins with responsibility preceding rights, or at least on a parallel with rights. It never has rights without responsibility. While a secularized culture seeks to have rights without responsibility, it ultimately crashes against its own illogical impossibility. As a result, it continually creates more laws to somehow seek to curb that absurd mindset. Rights without responsibility is unsustainable.

  A blood drenched historical illustration of this is the French Revolution. Motivated by the atheistic philosophies of Rousseau, Voltaire and others, the French Revolution sought to emancipate people from all authority, particularly that of government and the church. It resulted in a breaking away from the church and questioning of the “Ancien Regime” which was the system France adhered to prior to the revolution and had resulted in the monarchy having absolute power. Tragically, both the church and government had abused their rights, so the prevailing sentiment was that it was better to dispense with them altogether. Their perverse view of church and state rights without responsibility were a catalyst that birthed the French Revolution. French royalty and the church in France erroneously believed that they had only rights, yet little or no responsibility.  

  But who created both government and the church? God. As the Creator, who gives government and the church authority and power? God. Yet, in France both forgot that they were responsible to God. Personally, I believe that God used the French Revolution to hold them accountable.

  Tragically, Robespierre and his revolutionaries didn’t learn from those errors. Even though one of the Revolution’s first documents was The Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Revolution unleashed a Reign of Terror, during which suspected enemies of the Revolution were guillotined by the thousands – the chaotic outcome of rights without responsibility.

  America continually repeats this same failed pattern of rights without responsibility. Rights absent of responsibility always have a tragic end. Because there are so many examples of this, we could easily be overwhelmed with illustrations, so let me touch on just one.

  Please understand, because this rights without responsibility mindset is so deeply rooted in our culture, solutions aren’t simple, nor is it easy to dismantle. The cure will be painful, costly and require great wisdom. This tragedy of irresponsibility and dependence took decades to devolve and will take time to solve. A “quick fix” approach will be disastrous.  

  The conventional wisdom is that it is inhumane to withhold food to motivate the indolent to work. What Scripture teaches then is a radical and very politically incorrect, social behavior model:  “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-11). Essentially, the Bible is in total agreement with a sign often seen: “Will work for food.”

  If you refuse to work, the Bible teaches hunger is the natural outcome. An empty stomach is a cure for sloth. If you won’t be responsible and work, you don’t have the right to food, housing, medical care of a litany of other rights we dole out to the irresponsible in the “Great Society.” Dr. Thomas Sowell powerful writes that the Welfare State is more enslaving than slavery ever was. Today 1^st century indolent “busybodies” would be a blessing in our free lunch world.

  Please understand, because God is merciful and gracious, there’s provision made for those unable to work, like children, the disabled or elderly. The Bible though is the original instigator of “tough love” and the application of this one biblical truth would revolutionize our world.

  Sadly, this mindset of rights without responsibility has contaminated many Christians. Believers who are aghast at those who live on the dole in the public arena are inconsistent when it comes to their own adult children. They allow them to live at home with little or no responsibility. Many are addicts (drugs, alcohol, porn, video gaming) but the thought of putting them on the street horrifies their parents. Sometimes the lazy adult child will use grandchildren as pawns to manipulate their parents and protect their irresponsible lifestyle. If their parents threaten them with eviction, they’ll accuse their parent/s of cruelty, rather than owning up to the fact that their own choices – laziness and a lack of initiative – are the real problem. They don’t want to take any responsibility for their mess.

  Another common rights without responsibility is found in the mindset of many Christians when it comes to their church family. They see the church as a type of spiritual soup kitchen where they can get a free meal, yet never invest time or money. They’re offended if there’s any suggestion that they might have some responsibility. In their unbiblical reasoning, the church should just be thankful that they come and take up space. They’ll even complain if the soup is too hot, the line is too long, someone sat in their seat, or there’s not enough variety. It’s a Christian welfare mentality. The bottom line is that the thinking that we often abhor in the public arena frequently contaminates our marriages, families and our churches. We have many God-given rights but God places responsibility first, and so must we. 

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