The Status Quo v. Heavenly Unity
Once upon a time there was a church. It had been given the beautiful charge:
• to share the story of the selfless and other-centered love of Jesus in giving His life to save people from death and give them eternal
life and eternal joy
• to tell how He was so completely focused on us that He had stepped down from His position as CEO of the universe in order to save us
• how He left the place where He was surrounded by angels who loved to do whatever He said and whom He treated as friends even though they were His subordinates
• how the angels under His example and influence all worked together as if they were of one mind and one accord
• where fights between them never took place because of the humility and the spirit of cooperation that actively dwelt in everyone’s hearts because they had caught them from Jesus their Commander
• how He lived a life of tireless service to others here on earth
• how though He was greatly resisted here He persevered in kindness and love and in living the same way He had lived in Heaven in spite of
the fact that people refused to recognize Him for who He really is—our Maker and Lord and Leader
• with the result of His work being that He successfully planted the same spirit in the hearts of His followers as exists in the hearts of
the angels whom He had left behind in Heaven when He came to live among us and save us.
In order to fulfill their high calling, this church organized themselves for service by calling people to offices and forming an administrative board. They built a church building, added a school, and hired a teacher to their ministry staff. Then they went to work.
At first, they tried to follow what Jesus had taught them through His prophets. But as time passed, and people made fun of them for their
“strange” beliefs and practices, some church members began to push to the background their beliefs and practices that people made fun of the most. And some, in time, began to abandon some of their more distinctive and obvious ways of faith and life—ways that they defined as not being moral issues or critical to salvation. So, while the church continued to represent some of what Jesus taught, the lifestyle of the church began to fit in more and more with the world around it.
Some members that spent all of their time trying to earn God’s acceptance, rather than believing that He gave it to them, burned out
after a prolonged period of trying to be good enough to earn His favor. So, after living like receiving God’s grace was based on what
they had to do, and living lives of obedience from the outside in, they swung to the other extreme and decided that receiving God’s grace
must be the opposite, that salvation is based on what they didn’t have to do. So, they stopped doing much, never having truly accepted the
real grace of God that transforms and produces obedience from the inside out.
Then there were the missional problems. In other words, many people that had joined the church did so because they wanted to be saved, but they did little to nothing when it came to personally sharing the story of Jesus with people in their lives. Yes, they gave money to
support the mission of the church, but fear or pride ultimately kept them back from risking the rejection that accompanies trying to speak
to others about accepting Jesus. So, by default, evangelism was nearly reduced to being the work of paid professionals, leaving most
of the workers in the stands as spectators. And the interface between the gospel and the world, which was intended to have been as wide as
the church in numbers, was reduced to a mere fraction of what it could have been.
Then there were administrative problems. In order to model the beautiful life and example of Jesus, one of the elders and the treasurer decided that they knew better than anyone else what should be done, and they began to compete for control of the church. Subversive and clandestine meetings began to take place, secret emails sent, and secret schemings contrived. An iron-clad will, coupled
together with a willingness to be combative when necessary gave these two great influence with most everyone else, since no one else was
quite as determined as they were. One of them even showed a willingness to prevaricate if doing so would accomplish his “godly” goals.
Others who didn’t agree with the new leadership of the church and who were really offended at what they saw happening must not have wanted to get involved because in spite of the fact that they spoke to the pastor against the things their new leaders were doing, they did little of practical significance to contradict them. Not even the removal of the pastor by reason of unjust and political manipulations
was sufficient to arouse them to do much more than lament what was happening…and do nothing more.
The poor teacher also became a casualty to the new and improved ways of doing business that had crept into the church. At one point, some
of the members decided that the teacher in their school was a bad fit—an inadequate professional. So, members that had no children in the school started a campaign to remove the teacher. But when all was said and done and the poor man had been ousted, the only real reason
his foes had ejected him was so that they could give his job to one of their friends—who quit a year later.
All told, the power that each one in their own way had taken into their own hands—the power to gain the approval of unbelievers around
them, or the power to oust leaders by means of astute political maneuvering—gave each one the illusion that power attended their church. But they never made the connection between the aging nature of their congregation, and the lack of people joining their church, and the in-fighting that went on from time to time among them, and the absence of God’s power residing with them. So, instead of the unity of
heaven…..all they really and truly had…was the status quo of earth—the self-defeating outcome of the survival of the fittest of the
personalities among them.
There is a crying need in the church today, and that need is that the status quo, with its encumbering burden of stagnation be overcome. The question is, how can this be done?
One thing’s for sure: the status quo isn’t an expression of unity—like they have in Heaven. Instead, it is the cumulative result of the
influences of individual personalities acting on each other. Some people are strong-willed, and seek to bring everyone around them into
conformity to their ideas. Some people in the church are distracted by their own personal lives and interests; so besides appearing at
church between 11:00 am and noon, and perhaps giving some financial support, their input marginally affects the direction or effectiveness of the church. Other people can see when things aren’t right, but refuse to cross the errant for whatever reasons, and so the influence they could wield remains dormant, and by their practical passivity they actually support the erring and further the wrong.
When all of these unique personalities are thrown together, even the presence of a few people who are spiritually on-track isn’t sufficient to withstand the combined influence of the unprincipled, preferentially-based personalities surrounding them. It’s the
perennial contest between truth and carnal desires.
What it all boils down to is this: the world operates on personalities and temperaments; but the kingdom of heaven operates on character. And character and personality are not the same thing. Character trumps personality and temperament, but only in born again people. And this fact bodes poorly for any church whose operative principle cannot in any way be seen as being anything other than social
Darwinism.
So, what is the evidence that a person has chosen to accept Jesus to the point that His character has become their character? That the
operating system in Jesus’ heart has become the operating system in their heart? Are you ready for this? When godly character is in control in the heart of a man or woman, that person…..can be told no. They can be contradicted even when they’re right and not launch into anger and competition. (This is what happens when a person chooses to live by truth and the principles of truth as received by faith in
Jesus, as opposed to living with personal desires and preferences and inclinations in control.) But when personality and temperament are in
control, they can’t—not without chafing and offense and brooding.
When personality is in control, we think that we’re always right. And we get bitter or sullen or withdrawn when our way is crossed.
However, when character is in control, even when we’re right we’re able to yield our way without offense for the good of the whole. Of
course, this doesn’t include yielding principle. And by the way, when character is in control, we ourselves don’t need help distinguishing
between principled issues and preferentially based issues—an ability that personality based people struggle with mightily.
If, as a church, we are to live up to our high and beautiful calling, and if we’re to not only tell the world about, but show them the beautiful character of Jesus, then the status quo must be turned from and heavenly unity be fully embraced. And in order to do that, there
are four things that we must do. First, we must openly recognize the presence of the status quo among us. Second, we must take a fearless
moral inventory and admit the part we have played in creating and maintaining the status quo. Third, we must pray to the Lord that He
will show us His real grace and help us to truly perceive, believe and receive it. And finally, we must spend time with the Lord daily in His Word and in prayer so that He can show us His grace, transform our hearts, and knit our hearts together with the unity of Heaven. After all, hiding God’s light from the world nor the highest place in the church is not for you or me. Our place is at the side of Jesus openly serving God and others.
By the way, not only are there corporate status quos, there are also personal status quos. In fact, if there were no personal status quos,
there would not be any corporate status quos. So, the solution to any corporate status quo is for the individuals that make it up to deal
with the status quos of their own. In other words, if and when the people who make up the status quos of the world choose to live their
lives by truth and principle instead of by their mere desires and inclinations of their personalities and temperaments, when they come together, corporate status quos will be nowhere to be found. After all, a strong brick wall is made up of strong bricks, not weak ones
mortared together.
Ellen White once wrote, “There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God,” The Desire of Ages, p. 250-251. Can you imagine what would happen if
a whole group of people did this together?
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and
meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:1-3