My wife and I enjoy watching some of those “specialty” cable channels like The Food Network, Discovery Channel, and HGTV—a lot of the latter. Matter of fact, I’ve watched it so much I think I noticed a pattern in the shows. This one house was being renovated and had some tall shutters outside the windows that the decorators wanted removed. The next show was something about one-room make-overs and the decorator on this show goes, “I know just what this room needs,” and produces this set of shutters, laying out the plan on how to spiff them up and mount them inside the room as a faux window. I keep seeing stuff like this from time to time and wonder . . . just what does it take to keep up with the Jones’?
We talk to our kids about peer pressure and the dangers associated thereunto, yet as adults, create entire TV networks that use peer pressure as the driving motivation for each show. The competitions, the makeovers, the cutting edge, the sound, the taste —everything has to “pop” just a little better than the one before it. The cars, the clothes, the food, the landscaping, the boats, the weapons, the entertainment systems, the pets, the “reality.” Drives me nuts.
Honestly, the only “Jones” I want to keep up with is Dr. Jones, Seminary Professor, evangelist, author, father, missionary. Why? Because he is godly example. It is not uncommon to hear him conclude a meeting or class with something like, “well, I must go. Please pray for us as I go to meet so-and-so at such-and-such to introduce them to Christ.” I actually feel jealous at times because I can’t just go out like he can. Of course, I also have the words of a Jehovah’s Witness ringing in my ears and spurring me on from a conversation almost 17 years ago, “I go out door to door telling people about the Kingdom. What are you doing?”
Considering the kinds of pressure adults feel, the main arena in which we try to keep up with the Jones’ is in the area of our business. I am currently working with an organization that has found itself asking the question, “Are we a church, or a business?” Years ago I worked for a company that asked the same question. Approximately 90% of all employees there were professing Christians, most all attending the same church. But what happens when so many work together in one place? Is it a church, or a business? Moreso, under which principles do we operate? I actually think I am closer to the answer to that question for past employer and present associations.
I have very strong convictions concerning marketing the church and allowing the unregenerate and unrepentant to tell the church how to be and what to do. In the same regard I feel very strongly about adopting leadership principles from a worldly perspective, and leadership principles should have a much wider application than we allow. In that vein, I feel that a business, with Christians at the helm is asking the wrong question, which is not, “are we a church or a business?” then seek to discover a balance of worldly and religious principles toward success. The right question is, “what is biblical?” If “we” are not a church (what else would a gathering of Christians be in any setting?), then what are we? I suppose we could infer that the church can exist within business, but how do we act? By what is biblical.
I suppose then we could say that we struggle and are tempted at times to live under two different sets of ethics.
Approach this from a national perspective. Israel had a problem in the past that grew into a large cycle of sin and restoration. Eli had perverse sons, but Samuel seemed to be showing promise. We read in 1 Samuel 8 that Samuel’s sons are rising but are acting perversely, like Eli’s sons did, taking bribes and perverting justice. Israel goes from this dark, depressing period, through rays of hope, and now the clouds are moving in again as old patterns are reappearing. While Samuel’s sons were showing signs of failing as leaders, the nation begins to inquire about getting a king—after all, the other nations have them. They have rejected God’s reign over them.
Samuel’s response to the people’s request for a king is noteworthy. Samuel prayed. I am inclined to think this was not a quick, upturned eye, in-and-out shallow, cheesy prayer, but the prayer of a leader. I am inclined to think that he left the presence of the leaders and spent time in serious conversation with God. During this time, God says some specific words to Samuel about what to do and why it is to be done. This causes me to think: when we pray and ask God for direction, do what simply take the “what” and run with it? I wonder how many times we understand God’s “why . . .”
Samuel returns to the people with God’s words, the warnings of what having a king would be like. In I Samuel 8 he told them specifically:
- He will take your sons and will make them his army and the caretakers of the army (v. 11-12);
- He will take your daughters to be his caretakers (v. 13);
- He will take you (v. 17b);
- He will take from you for his servants, his officers and their servants, who were your sons and daughters (v.14-15);
- He will take your tools: your servants and donkeys and from your flocks (v.16-17).
- And you will cry because of your king (v.18).
What did the people do? They refused to listen and threw a tantrum. They wanted to be like everyone else so much, they would do whatever it took to get it. I notice that Samuel goes back to God and tells them what the people said. That sort of seems strange, in a way. But Samuel talked to God and God talked to Samuel and did what God said, not what the people wanted. I think Samuel wanted to make certain of that.
1 Peter 2:9–12: “But you [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once [were] not a people but [are] now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beg [you] as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by [your] good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
There are reasons why the people of God are to be different from the people of the world.
- Believers are chosen royal priests, His special people, sojourner and pilgrims. This is who we are.
- Believers are to proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. We are to abstain from fleshly lust and have honorable conduct. This is what we are to do.
- Believers once were not a people of God, we had not obtained mercy. Now, we have. This is the reason why, the motivation to be and do.
Israel forgot who they were, what they were to do and the motivation for doing it.
Exodus 19:4-6: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”
God’s people are to be unlike anyone else.
Romans 12:1-2: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Here is the solution for we who live in a world that seeks to conform us to its pattern of thinking and living. We are to:
- DO: Present our bodies as living and holy sacrifice as worship.
- DON’T: be conformed to this world
- DO: be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
- WHY: to prove what the will of God is.
If you “do” all the “do’s”, you don’t have time to “do” the “don’ts”.
Now, I am stuck: how is it possible for a godly man like Samuel to have ungodly children?
Or consider the converse: how can godly children come from ungodly parents?
This looks to be the great irony of redemptive history. The reason is to show that the outcome of God’s activity is truly His doing. When people want to be like the world, God gives them what they want, and the consequences of their decision as judgment. The people wanted to king, not God. God gave them what they wanted and all that came with it. In the same way Eli’s sons wanted the world and they got it and all that came with it. They missed what God had for them had they obeyed. Samuel’s sons wanted the world and they got it and all that came with it. They missed what God had for them had they obeyed.
Here is another question: what standard should we expect leadership to hold? Clearly an unregenerate leader will not accept God’s principles, so the people get to experience the results of their choices along with those that follow the decisions of that leader. If the character and private life of a leader has no bearing on his public life, then what of integrity? I think we saw that come to the fore a few years back under the Clinton Adminstration. But the Fru-fru blinded and baffled the nation . . .
Here’s where we get to reflect and ask ourselves about how our lives, values, attitudes and/or behaviors mirror the world.
Here’s where we get to ask, “What does God’s Word say? How do I fail? What should I be doing? How am I to be doing it?”
Take a look around at where you are, who is around you. Where has God placed you? Where are God’s people in relation to where you are? What are you to be doing as God’s people? How are you going to be used by God to encourage and admonish the brethren in good and poor choices?
