Can We (Really) All Just Get Along?
By Amy Rager
It would seem that if a group of people built their ideology upon the same, infallible book that the members of the group would all pretty much believe the same thing. And yet we all know a multitude of other Bible-believing Christians who make us want to hide under a rock. There are folks who love God and live for Christ holding viewpoints that baffle us.
Disagreements over God’s intent and desires have divided Christians since the days of Paul. The problem is not new but its resolution is still pressing. Here’s why:
We are called to unity. Before Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, he prayed these words over his disciples: I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word (that’s us!), that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Jesus knew we would need each other. He knew that the world’s acceptance of him as its’ Savior would be influenced by our unity.
Human nature says, “Divide. Distance yourself from what you don’t understand. Get ahead by clinging to the powerful. Those who don’t agree with you must be dumb. Surround yourself with those just like you.” The Spirit within us says, “Unite. Love. Give grace. Draw those in who may hurt you. Give of yourself. Everyone is made in the image of God. No one is past redemption.’
The question of our day seems to be: can we coexist together in a meaningful way while having different points of view? What a testimony it will be if the church can raise her voice and say, “Yes! Look at us! There is something that can unite and it is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.”
But how? How can a Christian of color have unity with a believer who denies the continued existence of racism? How can a proponent of gun control and a gun rights activist within the same church get along? How can someone who believes that part of the answer to crime control is eliminating immigration embrace their illegal immigrant brother or sister in Christ?
I’m going to be really honest for a second and say that I don’t have the answer. A problem this big is far above my pay-grade. But I do have hope. Our God will accomplish what he desires. As we wait on him, we must act. Will it be messy? Sure. But, ‘hope does not put us to shame.’ With that disclaimer, here are some steps to consider for promoting God-glorifying unity within the church:
1) Pray fervently and first The Bible calls us ministers of reconciliation. However, the kind of humility and strength that fosters unity comes only from God. Faithful attempts at unity are our responsibility, but we are at God’s mercy for the results. Plead with him. Pray to God that he would give you discernment and compassion. Pray that he would prepare the person(s) you are struggling with relationally for a meaningful journey toward unity. Jesus prayed for our unity; it seems fitting we should pray for it as well. Verses for inspiration: James 3:18, Philippians 4:7, Proverbs 16:7, Psalm 29:11
2) Listen as an invested sibling Being a part of the same family means actively investing in one another’s well-being. Don’t make assumptions about your sister’s viewpoint or experience—ask her about it. Don’t judge your brother from a mile away or let bitterness brew in your heart—have the difficult conversation. Show them you care by your presence, and seek to understand. Compassionate listening is empowering, and giving validity to someone’s experience builds bridges. This does not mean, however, that you have to agree with or tolerate their statement. Verses for inspiration: 1 John 4:20, Romans 12:5 & 10, 1 Timothy 5:1-2
3) Rebuke humbly Deception is dangerous. Sin is oppressive. After prayer and conversation, if you still feel they are deceived or walking in sin it is your obligation to offer humble rebuke. As people who are capable of being deceived, we correct respectfully. For their good and restoration, we point them back to the ways God intends. We don’t let someone we love remain in error. Verses for inspiration: Romans 12:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:26, 1 Timothy 5:1-2, Proverbs 17:17
4) Rinse and repeat The process doesn’t end. Even if unity was restored, it will be challenged again soon enough. Persevere. Stay committed to your brothers and sisters in Christ. ‘He who began a good work in (your fellow Christian) will be faithful to complete it.’ Don’t give up on unity within the church, the rewards are too great and the command is too strong.
Made Together: God in Community
By Sydney Gautier
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27)
When we gather in community, we declare who God is.
Most of the time when I think about gathering together in community, I think about getting to spend time with people I enjoy being around. I look forward to seeing my friends at church on Sunday and community group during the week. I love grabbing coffee with people I don’t get to see often and catching up with family during the holidays. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not the main reason for community either. God exists in community. He exists as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—three in one, all individual but always together in community with one another. That means that, when we gather together in community with one another, we are declaring who God is.
We are wired to be part of community.
As God was creating the universe, we see him saying over and over in Genesis, “it is good.” But then, Jonathan pointed out in chapter 2 verse 18 of Genesis it says, “The Lord God said, ‘it is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’ Up until this point, “it was good,” but since we are created in God’s image, and God exists together as the trinity, we are wired to exist in community. God gave Adam a helper, Eve, so that he would not be alone.
Community is our aspiration.
At New Circle, we say that community is our aspiration. Jonathan reminded us that this isn’t just because we like hanging out with each other. By being in community, we are declaring who God is and embracing who He has wired us to be. However, when we try to isolate ourselves, we push against who God made us to be. Jonathan said, “Coming together as a family is critical for our spiritual growth and an opportunity to declare God to a world that needs him.” He gave us three ways to do this: to think about gathering differently, to embrace family as our identity, and to rejoice in the Gospel that brings us together.
“God exists in an eternal relationship with the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As a relational being, He creates us as relational beings to represent Him to all of Creation.” (Brad House)
Ordinary People: Work as Worship
Highlights by Sydney Gautier
Work should lead to worship.
When Barry first said this, it sounded strange to me. I’ve worked as a waitress, a hostess, a substitute teacher, an ice cream scooper, and even a carousel attendant. I can’t say that any of those felt like acts of worship, but as strange as it sounds, God cared about my ice cream scooping and the carousel attending. He cares about the way I work in these incredibly mundane jobs. I should, too.
God ordained work.
There was work in the garden of Eden before there was sin. Adam and Eve worked in the garden before they sinned, so it’s important to remember that work isn’t a punishment. Work is good. God even works every day to sustain His creation and make all things new. Jesus worked too. “My father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). God called us to be workers as well. He would not have done so unless it was good for us. He has called us to be teachers and construction workers and baristas and ice cream scoopers because he is a good father and knows what is best for us.
We are to work as living sacrifices.
God wants us to be totally dedicated and devoted to Him in our work. Paul puts it this way, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men...You are serving the Lord Christ.” (Colossians 3:23-24). For me, this would mean scooping ice cream as if Jesus was the one I would be handing the cone to. Or setting a table as if Jesus was the one that was about to sit down and eat. If this is the way I would go about my work, my attitude would be completely different. I would go from being indifferent to being vigilant and engaged.
Extraordinary things happen when ordinary people do ordinary things with gospel intentionality.
What would happen if we went to work with this mindset everyday? A lot of the time, for me anyways, work can feel mundane and ordinary. Gospel intentionality changes this, though. We can use work as an act of worship. The gospel allows us to treat the people we work with differently because God’s glorification is the end goal. We are able to love the boss who is constantly breathing down our neck. We can show patience to the co-worker who has a hard time following directions. When we succeed at a project, we give the glory to God and are able to be grateful to him.
Barry calculated that over our lifetimes, each of us will work on average 80,000 hours. That’s over 9 years of our lives that could be transformed from an act of weariness to an act of worship.
Strangers in a Strange Land
By Evan Johnson
“Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
- Deuteronomy 10:19
“No man's an island."
- John Donne
“Toto… I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…”
- Dorothy
When Moses first refers to himself as a sojourner or as a stranger in a strange land, it’s not when he’s wandering in the desert with over a million Israelites. It’s when he’s a fugitive for murder and he flees to Midian. He found grace there in his soon-to-be father-in-law, Jethro, and his people. He has a son and names him Gershom, which means “for I was a stranger in a strange land.”
We can take this to mean two things. Meaning number one: Moses gives Gershom this name out of gratitude for the grace that a people showed a random foreigner who arrived on their doorstop. Meaning number two: Moses is describing his time in Egypt where he was a member of the Egyptian elite and his people were being enslaved, despite God’s promises to deliver them.
I think it’s both. I think this is a call of gratitude as well as a remembrance of the bizarreness of the world in which he lived. He understands that without the love and grace of Jethro and Zipporah, he would not have survived in a land that he merely wandered into, escaping from the law of his own country. In the same breath, he understands that the land that he came from was not the final destination for God’s people.
We see this longing reminder repeated throughout Scripture. Deuteronomy instructs the people of Israel to love those who sojourn into their midst since they were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Jacob and his tribe wandered into Egypt in search of food and shelter in a time of famine in Canaan, and for a while, that’s what they got, but a couple hundred years later, things changed. The Israelites were so vast in number that the Pharaoh believed they were becoming a political force in Egypt, so he enslaved them. God calls his people to remember this—to remember the struggles of a sojourner.
As Americans, it’s hard to sympathize with the sojourner. The examples we have from our past experiences pale in comparison to true stories of wandering and hopelessness that happen at the border and in Syria, and while there should be legal precedents to ensure the safety of Americans as well as those wandering from drug-ridden countries and war-torn nations, we need to remember that our ancestors—both Egyptian and Pilgrim—were sojourners, too. To ignore the needs of human beings with souls and smiles, words and faces, hands and feet, tears and laughter, is to ignore Jesus Christ himself according to his own words.
Having said that, America is not New Jerusalem. Someone who crosses the border into America steps into a whole new world of problems and dilemmas. We are not the city on a hill—and we never will be. The goal of the American experiment to be a beacon of light in an otherwise dim world is an admirable goal, but we, too, are still strangers in a strange land. Our eternal home—our true citizenship—is in the Kingdom of Heaven to come.
When Jesus Christ himself returns to declare all authorities subjugated and plants himself as King of the world, then and only then will this land not be strange. Eternal bliss will be and feel normal. The need to fight or to quarrel will be an instinct of the past. Everything will feel... well... right. Since the eternity of the New Jerusalem dwells within us, we are then motivated by seeing this pain-free, forever unbroken world come about. Brokenness should be strange to the Christian. Pain should be a foreign idea to those with a redeemed heart. As ministers of reconciliation, our marching orders are to make this world less strange, even for people who are themselves strange to us.
We need to ask two questions, though.
Who is the sojourner among us?
Maybe the sojourner is a literal sojourner. Maybe it is an undocumented immigrant. Maybe it’s a dreamer. Maybe it’s a refugee. Maybe it's someone who has been displaced. The heart of the church is to reach out and help those who are either without a home or their home has become so unrecognizable to them that they don't know what to call it.
Or, maybe the sojourner is a more figurative sojourner. Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t quite fit in. Maybe it’s an abused spouse. Maybe it’s a child who has been taken advantage of. Maybe it’s a person who doesn’t trust our skin color or religion at all. They are still sojourners, and we still were sojourners. As Christians, we have a source for mercy and compassion—the mercy and compassion that Christ has given us. This love is not ours to keep. It is ours to give.
How can we help the sojourner among us?
Reach out to the sojourner next to you--your neighbor, your co-worker, your family member. If someone you know is going through a strange and hard time, show them that welcoming love that Jesus has already shown us all. Remind them of his love and grace. This doesn't have to be through Bible verses. Simply being a friend can be a powerful enough presence in someone's life.
Reach out to different organizations in your areas. There are refugees all over America hiding in plain sight. There are undocumented immigrants that need our help in neighborhoods simply nearby.
The Church has a vital role to play in loving its neighbors.
And its neighbors are sometimes wanderers.
And those wanderers need mercy.
Stories of New Circle: Ted
This blog post is a transcript of an interview with a builder at New Circle named Ted.
What do you do for a living?
I teach seventh and eighth grade language arts at Saint Monica Catholic School, and I run their theatre program. I also co-own a theatre company.
What do you enjoy about teaching?
I like the conversations that I have. The students are not too little, but they’re not too grown up. They’re at that perfect age where—and this may bounce cliché—you can sort of mold their minds. I can have great conversations with them about books and about life. I can read a book a hundred times and get a new perspective on a piece of literature from them, even if it’s just in one class. If I have a class of just twenty kids, then I have twenty different perspectives right there.
Also, being in my eighth year at St. Monica, I’ve known these families for a long time. I’ve built some strong relationships since I’m on sibling number two, three, or four in some families.
You haven’t been a part of the theatre company as long as you’ve been a part of Saint Monica, but I’d like to pose the same question. What’s your favorite part of co-owning a theatre company?
It’s actually very similar. Whereas with my eighth graders I’m seeing these books come to life, with the people we cast and the people who work on our plays, we get to see an entire play or musical come to life.
Also, we’ve met so many new people and made so many new friends—from all over—through this theatre company. We’ve got repeats. We’ve got new people.
Do you guys try and pick your plays in a more message-oriented sense, or are your selections more sporadic?
It’s a bit of a variety. We obviously want to do plays that we like, and we want to do different types of plays. For Instance, we just did Shakespeare, which was a huge challenge—in a good way, but in all our shows, we try not to be comfortable. We try not to settle. We don’t want to just be satisfied with doing one type of play or musical.
What’s your favorite play?
Arsenic and Old Lace. I’ve always loved it. I loved the movie since my dad showed it to me when I was in middle school, so I’ve always wanted to do it. When we finally got the chance, we built an entire living room—I still brag about that set to people. It was a pain to put together, but it turned out so well.
Romeo and Juliet is my favorite Shakespeare, though.
Why Romeo and Juliet?
It’s my favorite Shakespeare—and I love West Side Story. West Side Story is the musical adaptation of Romeo an Juliet, and I love it. What’s great about Shakespeare is you can make it your own. You can modernize it, especially with Romeo and Juliet. You can set it in any time period and it works. I saw a version where Juliet’s family was black and Romeo’s family was white, and it still worked because that’s where the tension came in. The two families were opposite races in the fifties.
With teaching and the theatre company being such a huge part of your life, have you seen God move in either (or both) parts of your life?
Absolutely. I’m at Saint Monica because of God.
It’s a bit of a long story. First off, all of my siblings are adopted from China, so my mom was really into the blogging world and was connected to adopted families all over the country. The summer after I graduated college, I just kept getting rejection after rejection after rejection. I started looking elsewhere other than teaching. No one was hiring me because I didn’t have enough experience since I did just graduate. Well, my mom had written a blog post about me needing a job. There was a couple that traveled with my family to China to get my brother Philip, and the wife had just been looking at that blog post while a group of my friends were praying over my job situation. She was a teacher at Saint Monica. Catholic School. I get a call from her the next day from her. She says, “I know your degree is in middle school English, but I need an assistant for my preschool class.” I kind of hesitated, but when I found out that she was reading my mom’s blog post at the same time that people were praying over me, I couldn’t ignore it. Normally, I would say no to being a preschool teaching assistant, but I took it as a sign, and I’m now in my eighth year at Saint Monica.
I get to see the transformations in a kid who hates school who, by the end of the year, is reading Animal Farm. To me, God is transforming this kids. Whether they know it or not, God is molding them.
God has placed some incredible people in my life. People are very important to me. I’m very much a people person, so the relationships that I’ve built at Saint Monica are definitely thanks to God. I know it has
The same with the theatre company. We’re not a “Christian company,” but the way that we treat people and interact with them as actors is rooted in who we are as Christians.
The Idol of Purpose
By Evan Johnson
“The more I’ve listened to God, the more I’ve realized I don’t always catch what God is up to in real time… I usually understand what God is doing by seeing it through a rearview mirror.”
- Bob Goff
“Remember, nowadays it’s only personal courage that a man can get on in the world. If you see an opportunity, don’t stop to think but seize it, or you may lose it for ever. If that fails, try something else… Don’t fight shy of adventures.”
- Alexander Dumas
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
I changed my major eight times in my college career. It’s a joke I often allude to. I was everything from an English major to Human Environmental Sciences all the way to Marine Biology (until Shark Week ended). The bulk of these major changes happened during my sophomore year. Though I’ll readily admit it’s a hilarious concept that any English major would think he could succeed in elasmobranchology (the study of sharks), the effects of my indecision wore on me. I was asking the question every college student asks: “what am I going to do with my life?”
For Christians, it may sound a bit more like: “what is God’s purpose for my life?”
We’re a purpose-addicted society, anyway. We see it in our pop culture media from movies to books. In Beauty and the Beast, the butler-turned-candelabra Lumiere bemoans, “life is so unnerving for a servant who’s not serving.” In the Wolverine movies, the title character struggles with choosing not to be the weapon he was born to be. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey contemplates suicide because he wonders if the world would be any different if he’d never been born. In Fight Club, men escape a life devoid of purpose and find solace in their basic animal instincts. In Silence, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary in Feudal Japan struggles with whether or not his mission is useful. In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff makes it his mission in life to make Catherine’s existence as intolerable as possible. In The Odyssey, Odysseus returns home to fulfill his purpose as king. In Up, after his wife dies, Mr. Frederickson’s sense of purpose is diluted—that is, until he attaches balloons to his house and flies away.
We want to know that we’re here for a reason. True or not, we want to know there’s a point to it all. Otherwise, what’s the point?
But allow me to give you some hard advice that you’ll find comfort in:
Your purpose in life is not to discover your purpose in life
You already have one. God created everyone and everything to enjoy him. We are the conduit of his worship. The more of His love we take in, the more of His love we give out.
Bob Goff sums it up pretty well in one tweet:
“1. Love God 2. Love others 3. Do stuff”
That’s it. That’s your to-do list. Those are your mission objectives. Love God, love others, and do stuff. It really is that simple, and here’s the secret: you can make a mistake and do the wrong stuff, and your to-do list won’t change.
So it’s not necessarily our purpose that we’re searching for. Our destiny is glaring us in the face. It’s the nuts and bolts. It’s the tiny little how-to’s that we’re really asking for, and God provides a boundless field of grace to run in.
Think about it. When you die, will God really look at you and say, “Sally, you really should have been a teacher instead of a doctor” or “Bill, couldn’t you hear me calling you to play golf instead of basketball?”
No. God cares deeply about how we respond to him, how we respond to others, and how we respond to life in general. A teacher can be a good teacher or a bad teacher. A doctor can be a good doctor or a bad doctor. Find what you love to do—what you could do for eternity, and chase after that.
Purpose does not equate job security.
I’ve met many pastors and medical missionaries and law-degree students who felt called by God to their respective fields, but I’ve never met any garbage men who expressed the same passion. I find that suspicious. I’m not saying I’m a conspiracy theorist, but there seems to be a higher number of people being called to white collar jobs than there are blue collar jobs.
I’ve also met many young college students who expressed an interest to go into the ministry and when faced with an affected job market, turned the other way. In no fault of their own, they mistook their own fear for the word of the Holy Spirit. They mistook financial anxiety for God’s calling on their lives. That’s when doubt and fear sets in. They feel they’ve abandoned God and the church that was behind them.
I should know. I've been there.
This happens more often than we should be comfortable with, and it’s not excluded to vocational ministry callings. The fields of law and medicine have been very saturated in the recent years. Not everyone who has declared a law degree or pre-med has heard a voice from God mind you, but there does seem to be an overwhelming sense of purpose driving these young men and women into these fields.
And these are good fields, but just because I want to do something doesn’t mean I’ll get to. That’s awful, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a failure if I do something else. I haven’t fallen short of God’s measuring stick for my life if my Biology degree lands me in an online magazine or if my English degree lands me as a Starbucks manager.
We ask for God’s purpose in life, thinking that there’s a right answer. If we have the right answer, then we know what to do, and that’s one area of our life we don’t have to worry about messing up. And if God gives us the answer, then it’s his fault if it doesn’t turn out right. Right?
The problem is we think of purpose as a destination and not a lifestyle. A purpose-driven life looks like a life filled with love.
You’re still here.
I crossed the finish line of college with the skin of my nose. I needed 120 credit hours in four years. I think I had 121, and I decided that was enough for me. I had my degree. It was off to seminary.
About a year later, there was one problem: I hated seminary.
When a man feels called by God into what Paul describes to Timothy as a “noble profession,” he has a powerful sense of purpose. When he then comes to the realization that he hates this purpose, there is an overwhelming season of doubt, hopelessness, and anger. It’s not a pretty sight, but after what seemed like drowning in a doldrum of pointlessness, I came out the other side rather optimistic.
God isn’t limited to getting glory by me being a pastor. The all-loving, all-powerful, all-merciful God of the universe can get glory in more ways than one.
More ways than two.
More ways than ten.
I’m still here, so what do I wanna do?
You’re still here, so what do you wanna do?
Stories of New Circle: Gena
This is an article in a new series that reflects that stories of the people of New Circle Church.
What is one thing that brought you joy in the past year?
Finishing my first year of teaching. That brought me immense joy because I came into it not knowing what to expect. At first, I was really, really stressed about it, but as I went through it, I found that I was really loving what I was doing. Loving what I do brings me an immense about of joy.
How do you find joy in teaching?
I know some of these kids don’t come from very good homes, so knowing that I can give them love, respect, or peace that they may not get from home brings me joy.
What’s the biggest challenge when it comes to teaching?
Being stern and sticking to my word. It’s really hard from me to not be like “you can’t do that” and five minutes later be like, “oh that’s fine.” It’s finding that balance of classroom management. I have a really hard time wanting them to like me. Sometimes I think “they won’t like me if I tell them ‘no.’”
What’s been a really impactful moment from January 1 of 2016 until now?
I got baptized in January. It was the first day that our church moved to the new building. It was something that had been on my mind for a while, so taking that step forward was really impactful. It literally happened so fast—I started coming to New Circle in November, and I got connected with a friend. She talked me through this, and I decided I wanted to do it.
How have you seen your faith affected over the past year?
My faith has affected my life decisions, things I want to do, and relationships. I look to a greater source than myself. It’s really cool because I’ve stepped out and done things that I know I wouldn’t have done in a million years. Doing those things—and knowing I’ve been led to do them—has been really cool. Good things happen afterwards, and I learn, “okay that was a good thing.”
Have you seen your growth reflected in your job as a teacher?
Definitely. It was actually really cool. When I first started my job, I was just starting to dig back into my faith, and then halfway through the school year was when I took that step. Afterwards, it was a complete turn-around in my attitude and how I was looking at situations because it’s really easy to get down on yourself or let yourself be taken in by the negativity of a situation.
What’s one thing you’re most excited about in the upcoming year?
Continual growth—this new found trust that I have. I’m really excited to just see where he takes me and what’s to come.
What’s one thing that you’re nervous about?
The next school year—how that’s going to go, how this new class is going to be different than my old class.
Rooms of Thought
By Evan Johnson
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1-2
We compartmentalize our lives. We’re a people ruled by scheduling, even if we’re bad at it. It’s the way our minds work. We have to-do lists and appointments. We have time blocks. Ultimately, we categorize things into rooms. Your rooms may look different than my rooms, but we have rooms nonetheless because within these rooms are the different avenues in which we experience life. We have our “church” room where all things Jesus live. It’s where we play in the worship band. It’s where we preach. It’s where we have bible study and try not to crack a joke that’s too crude.
We then have our “fun” room. This is where we watch Netflix, hang out with friends, listen to Kendrick Lamar, watch Mike Birbiglia, and throw Sunday football parties.
Though these two rooms may share a wall, they will never fuse. They will never become one room for us. We just can’t reconcile church with being fun, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that it just isn’t. We’re just scared to say it because it might hurt God’s feelings.
So instead of confronting our divided lives, we instead allow the dividing lines to fester. Our church room and our fun room become unrecognizable to the other. They look like they belong in different parts of the country. This happens because we compartmentalize. Since we compartmentalize our lives, we allow our thoughts to become compartmentalized.
So when Paul tells the Christians in Rome to present their bodies as living sacrifices, is he asking them to add another room to their apartment-style thinking? I don’t think so. I think Paul is offering an alternative way of viewing life—that the Christian life encompasses all of you. Whether you are sitting in a pew listening to a sermon or sitting at home watching Mad Men, you are still the same purchased and redeemed child of God.
I think we always initially understood this, but the application that Paul wants from his readers is not to begin going through a list of their Spotify playlists and favorite Netflix shows to find those that glorify God and those that don’t.
It’s to live a life according to the Sermon on the Mount. It’s to be a peacekeeper where you are, to thirst and hunger for righteousness in whatever you do, to be pure in heart and merciful in whatever room we’re in. It’s understanding that such a life brings with it persecution, sadness, mourning, and meekness, but the source of strength is not in any one single room. It’s not in our job, what we do for fun, where we attend church, our family history, or our political affiliation.
Our strength comes from the Creator of everything ever who wanted to get to know us.
It’s not the things in the rooms that present themselves as obstacles of worship and living a full life. It’s not your Netflix marathon of Friends or your Childish Gambino records. It’s the walls themselves. The walls are impudences to holiness.
Our lives are marked by holiness when they see people who are filled with life given by an emotionally complex Holy Spirit, a Jesus that wept over the death of his friend Lazarus, a God who relentlessly pursued his rebellious children in the deserts of the Middle East.
Our bodies are holy sacrifices when we are enjoying all of life and not just a portion of it.