"As long as Christians fail to repent of self-righteousness, we will continue to speak of evangelism in terms such as outreach, which implies we will not embrace lost people but will keep them at least an arm's length away. Unrepentant self-righteousness also permits us to justify our sin by viewing ourselves as "clean" and others as "dirty" which then causes us to avoid other in an effort to remain untainted. Repentance enabels us to kneel humbly with fellow sinners at the foot of the cross so they can see Jesus without our pride rising up to encumber their view.Self-righteousness has so seeped into American Christianity that being a missionary to one's neighbors is easily overlooked because of this sickness of our faith. How sick are we when the most popular books among American Christians are about how to get blessed by praying a small section of the Old Testament Scripture like a pagan mantra, and about the Rapture, as if the goal of the Christian life were to get more junk and leave this trailer park of a planet before God's tornado touches down on all the sinners? Only through repentant eyes will we see that God has a plan, by the power of the gospel of grace, to build a community of transformed people." (Radical Reformission, by Mark Driscoll pg. 78)
1 comment:
Preach it, Mark! Being a Christian, saved by God's grace, and having an attitude of self-righteousness are simply two incompatible realitiies. The only thing that makes them co-exist in the same person is our (my) sin, wicked sin. May we repent of "self-righteousness" (what an absurd concept!) and see ourselves as what we are-- sinners saved by grace, called to speak in love, and live out in tangible ways, the truth of the Gospel to other sinners, whom we earnestly wish to see saved too!
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