Educated Beyond Our Obedience...

I got to preach at both of our morning worship services yesterday. Teaching is nothing new to me as I get to teach our students every week, but it is always great to have the opportunity to teach the entire congregation. Our Senior Pastor was gone all week, so the teaching duties for the Sunday services fell to me. It's something I love to do and something that I feel God's passion in me when I am doing, so I was thrilled about the opportunity. As I studied up for my sermon, "Examining Our Spiritual Fatness," I ran across two quotes. I preached from 1 John 2:3-6 and talked about how John challenges us not just to know the faith, but to DO what Christ commands, which is to walk as He did, loving others and bearing witness to him. Here are the two quotes I came across, both from authors whose books I have read and thouroughly enjoyed:

"We (Christians and the church) are educated beyond our obedience." - Neil Cole

"Most of us (referring to believers) are educated way beyond our level of obedience. We don't need more information. We need more transformation." - Mark Batterson

Christianity has never had the level of education and resources than we do in America today. Our churches have never been so equipped with resources and classes and studies to educate us about our faith. We have never had access to so many schools and seminaries for theological training. But at the time when we have all this educational opportunity for growing in what it means to follow Jesus and live like Him, we see a huge void of genuine, authentic Christ followers. Many of the members of our churches look no different than the world. In the workplace and at schools, people who claim to follow Jesus live just like those who don't claim to be believers. In our business dealings, its sometimes hard to tell whether the person you are dealing with is a believer or not. On the weekends and in our social lives, so many people who claim to be Christ-followers live no different than anyone else. We have all the education, but we have no transformation. Our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, our families, and our communities don't need us to be better educated in the faith. They need us to live out the faith that we already know. They need us to model and show and live out the love and grace of Jesus. They need us to really believe what we say we know about Jesus, so that we are people who are transformed into Christ-followers who love our neighbors and our world like Jesus did.