Messages of the Orchard Church

Do you know what sin is? It isn't a little mistake or something minor, like going 60 in a 55 mile per hour zone. Sin is serious. It separates us from God. It angers God, and cues His wrath. So it should put us on our knees before God pleading, “have mercy on me a sinner!” Without Jesus, there is no hope for this sin. When all of the world began, everything was order. Sin comes in and creates chaos, everywhere. As the chaos of sin comes in and destroys the created order, Christ Jesus is still there holding all things together, containing the effects of sin so that we are not hopeless. In the end, He heals the chaos and restores order into His creation.

In the first chapter of Colossians, Paul describes the Gospel as "bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world". The Gospel is more than words or information that gives us orientation to God. The Gospel is like a powerful seed that grows into a mighty tree! This growth is spiritual and it happens in our souls, shaped by God to be useful for His purposes.

What happens when our culture thinks a sin is OK, when lots of people are doing the sin, and perhaps we even feel as if the sin is personally beneficial? Then what happens when the sin is widely and even openly practiced by people in the church? When it gets to this point, the church has become "enculturated", which means that the culture of the church looks no different than the culture of the world. We lose our salt and light, and we become blinded to truth and lazy with truth. Sexuality in America is an example of this. Our culture has become comfortable with divorce, fornication, lust, adultery, fornication, and homosexuality. Those in the church practice these sins, and sometimes even give approval to these. Is the church promoting the New Life, or simply the Old Life with Christian wrapping paper? The mission of church discipleship is to move each of us from the sinfulness and chaos of culture to the truth and order of scripture, and when a sin is so pervasive, such as sexual sin in America, we need God to change our hearts so that we can flee from sin and become genuine salt and light.

Admittedly, it can be intimidating to come before God to have Him change us. He might change our possessions, our relationships, our dreams in life, our reputation, our hobbies, our privilege, our generosity, our pleasures, etc. Most of us begin wanting to add Jesus to our existing lives, rather than have Jesus replace our lives, but that isn't how God is working. It isn't how Scripture describes the journey of a Christian. How do we find the courage? For us to genuinely and regularly kneel before God to ask Him to change us into the image of Jesus, as our Faith continuously urges us, we will need to trust that God loves us and has our best interests in mind. The disciplines of praise and thanksgiving prepare you for this change, as they recollect what God has done for you in the past and reflect on the very nature of God's goodness and love. Sure, we know the teaching that God loves us, but actually experiencing that love will give us the willingness to come before Him every day and eagerly desire for more and more change.

Why would anyone volunteer to go hungry? Why would any of us want the pain, discomfort, headaches, and weakness that comes about when a person fasts? Good questions. Donald Whitney, in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, wrote that “fasting is the most feared and misunderstood of all the spiritual disciplines”. Fasting is voluntarily going without food (and sometimes water) for a period of time - " it could be for just one meal, or for a day, or even several days. And when you look at all the examples in Scripture where people fasted, you will notice a pattern. In each case, they are desperate for God. They recognize their humble and helpless state and if God's power and presence doesn't come into their situation, then they will fail or be destroyed. Sometimes they need God to rescue them, sometimes to give them wisdom or direction, sometimes to show mercy to them, sometimes to resist or overcome the lies of Satan, or sometimes restoration, etc. So what about us? Are we desperate for God or complacent?