The QC Christian (2)

Eph. 6:14a

A man writes, “I turn on my TV again and let the advertisements wash over me.  The “T” in TV must stand for toxic.  None of what was being presented was true by any reasonable, commonplace measure of truth.

“Automobile ads offer vague images of sex and glamour as part of their product.  Just think of what businesses have invented to cheat people.  You think something you bought isn’t living up to the claims made for it.  You want your money back; you want things made right, but something has been invented to make sure you don’t and we call it “the fine print,” as in, “Oh, didn’t you read the fine print?” 

The “fine print” is a way of cheating people.  Fine print is a promise broken by design, in advance.  Then we have the ancient words, “Caveat emptor,” “Buyer beware.” 

When you lie to me and I take what you say as true, and I’ve gone out and invested my money and my time and my care and concern, you’ve stolen all those things from me because you got them from me based on false information.

Let’s get personal. When you lie to me, something happens to our relationship.  You’re hiding something and I don’t trust you and trust is THE important thing in any relationship.  Now, I’m suspicious of you. 

“Once you lie, honesty is gone from your heart and your heart becomes a seedbed of every evil thing.  Any crime is possible to a liar.  A liar will break at the touch of every temptation.”  (C. H. Spurgeon) 

Ross Perot didn’t want any adulterers working for him because “If a man will lie to his wife, he’ll lie to me.” 

Take a hypothetical case: let’s suppose that a printer who prints the schedule for an airline lies about arrivals and departures.  What would you have?  Chaos.  A complete breakdown.  Lying causes chaos in relationships because intertwined with suspicion is the anger at the liar. 

In Eph. 6, Paul draws an analogy between the uniform of the Roman soldier on active duty and the Christian, also on active duty.  But let’s not do what’s so common with this uniform—individualize it.  This is the uniform of the GQ church, as Paul is writing to the church, telling them what the best-dressed church is wearing for its battle in the cauldron of the fallen world.

If the church is going to survive and not break apart like Satan wants it to, it must wear a belt, but not just any belt is in fashion for the church.  The church must wear the belt of truth.  In the uniform of the ancient soldier, the belt held everything else in the uniform together—the breastplate and the scabbard for the sword.  In our culture, a nice belt gives the wearer a finished look, but if you leave off the belt, although you’ll look like a clod, no harm is done.  But for the soldier, the belt was crucial.  As it held so much in place, it also gave freedom of movement to the warrior.  Truth, honesty, with yourself, with others and with God gives you freedom of movement, just as the soldier used the belt to keep other items of his uniform in place for rapid movement, so the truth gives us a freedom of movement in our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God.  Remember David?  When he was lying about his sin of adultery and murder, he lost his momentum—read about it in Ps. 32; 51.

If a church is going to serve the Lord and have momentum, it has to be founded on the objective truth of the Word and truth in personal relationships or it loses its freedom. 

This is easy to see.  Look at the televangelist who gets into trouble because he wasn’t honest financially or morally and some scandal breaks loose for all the world to see.  What happens?  He loses his freedom; the momentum is gone from his ministry

The importance of the truth operates on every level, in every relationship.  When a Congressman such as Charlie Rangel, who is the chairman of the committee to write laws on how we pay our taxes, says that he “forgot” to report $75,000 of income for his taxes, we start to lose whatever trust and confidence we had in him, scant though it may have been.  Then, when he later admits that he “forgot” to report half a million in income in 2007, even the slenderest thread of trust is gone,. Now will come investigations and his freedom and momentum are lost because he’s enmeshed in a web of lawyers, inquiries, and distractions.

When the governor of South Carolina lies and says that he’s been missing because he’s been hiking for six days, and then we find out that instead of hiking, he’s been in Argentina to see his girlfriend, we know we can’t trust him.  Now he’s a prisoner of an investigation and he’s lost the freedom credibility brings. 

The smallest of society’s units, marriage, has chaos if one partner is lying to the other.

Take a look at Titus 1:2, Prov. 12:22; John 1:24, all sentences stating the importance of truth and how all truth-telling is founded on the character of God. 

So now we come to Eph. 6:14 and we learn that the church, properly dressed, is to buckle up with the objective revelation of God written and relational truth with each other.  The integrity of the church is on the line and it’s with this objective and relational truth it is to stand.  This gives the church its integrity and credibility, two things, which, if lost, are hard to get back.  The church loses if it has no integrity and the world finds out about it.

I ran across an interesting study done just after WWII.  The researchers were trying to answer the question, “What were you fighting for?”  They interviewed combat soldiers to get the answer. 

I would’ve said that the answer was, “I was fighting for my country.”  No.  “I was fighting for democracy.’  No.  “I was fighting for the American flag.”  No.  “I was fighting for FDR.”  No.

Overwhelmingly, the answer came back, “I was fighting for the other members of my squad.”  The squad was the smallest unit of human society which they were a part of.  In the squad, the survey learned, there was rigorous honesty; the liar was easily discovered.  If the squad was to survive, there was no room for a liar. 

With liars in the local church, Satan gains a beachhead which he can use to destroy the unity of the body of Christ.  (Eph. 4:25, 27)  The Christian squad breaks down with liars in the group and that’s why the event of Acts 5 is so strong when Ananias and Sapphira are found to be lying to their fellow believers. 

The positive aspects of the belt are candor with each other.  The church admits it’s filled with forgiven sinners and makes no pretense that it’s “perfect” or will become perfect in the cauldron.  The squad is open with each other.  That’s why our discipleship groups are so refreshing—each member of the group develops an honesty with the others in the squad over the 10 weeks. 

Without candor, the church loses its momentum and that’s why Satan wants to heat up the cauldron with lies, as he’s the father of all lying.  He started it in Eden .

Paul tells the church to put on this uniform.  When you got dressed to come to church today, you did it with some forethought.  You (I hope) were careful as to what you chose to wear.  Does this shirt match?  Does this belt go with these pants?  Do these shoes match?  Even to your socks and their matching colors.  You don’t want to come looking like “early bed,” so you picked and you chose, and you looked in the mirror. 

Have you been to a funeral service lately?  Clint Eastwood hit the nail on the head with his portrayal of a modern day funeral service in the movie, “Grand Torino.”  Some of those in attendance at his wife’s funeral, even family members, gave the impression, “I don’t care” in the way they acted and the way they dressed. The GQ Christian cares about the belt. 

Paul tells us to buckle up the belt of truth.  After you read Eph. 6:14a, the proper response to the Word is, “By faith, I agree that this is the way to go.  The world is telling me there’s not such thing as objective truth and there’s nothing important about relational truth, but by faith, I’m trusting God that I should buckle up with the truth.  So, in the mornings, not just the Sunday ones, you consciously buckle up and ask God, by the power of His Holy Spirit, to enable you to live out the objective truth of His Word and live out relational truth with others. 

Truth to Take Home:

Buckle up.