Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 108

00:00:00.000 Hello, Relatable listeners. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. It is Theology

00:00:05.700 Monday. Every Monday, if you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you know we go through

00:00:10.200 some kind of theological subject or maybe something that's happening within Christianity

00:00:15.140 that we need to refute or we need to talk about, we need to discuss. Today, we are going to talk

00:00:21.260 about a trend that a lot of you have brought up to me, messaged me about, and that is what I call

00:00:25.760 the messy Christian trend or this kind of culturally relevant, cool Christian trend of rejoicing in

00:00:34.640 rebellion and rejoicing in what they call messiness, which is really synonymous in a lot of their cases

00:00:40.960 to sin. So we're going to talk about what it means to be truly embracing the messiness of our lives

00:00:47.980 and embracing vulnerability and authenticity in a healthy way versus kind of what we see from a lot

00:00:55.420 of these culturally relevant Christian influencers where their version of embracing messy is just

00:01:02.460 saying, hey, sin is totally fine and God doesn't care about any of that. We're going to learn how

00:01:06.900 to distinguish. Okay, now let's get into what we are going to talk about. So like I said, this is a

00:01:13.760 trend in the Christian world that I really wouldn't call new. I think we're seeing it more often because

00:01:18.820 of social media and because of the increasing popularity of some of the biggest names and what I

00:01:23.880 would call this, I don't even know if I want to call it a movement, but kind of a part of this

00:01:28.960 subsection of Christianity. If you can even call it Christianity, we're just going to call it

00:01:33.480 Christianity because it's easier to understand that way and you guys know what I'm talking about, but

00:01:38.180 it's probably really been around for close to a couple decades now. I would say 12 to 15 years is

00:01:46.020 when it kind of started picking up and then we've really started noticing it a lot over the past five

00:01:50.880 years. And it's what I would call this messy Christianity or messy Christian trend. It is

00:01:56.920 this emphasis on being imperfect in the name of vulnerability. There are blogs dedicated to this

00:02:04.380 podcast, dedicated to it, books, YouTube channels, all on this subject. They come in a variety of names,

00:02:11.380 basically trying to communicate to you, hey, I'm not your normal Christian. Sure, I love God and I love

00:02:17.640 Jesus. But you know, I'm not one of those typical church going legalistic Christians. That's typically

00:02:23.060 what the names of these blogs and the premises of these blogs and YouTube channels, et cetera,

00:02:29.300 are trying to communicate to you. Some of the biggest names in this, I would say, are Jen Hatmaker,

00:02:34.920 Glennon Doyle. There's this Lutheran pastor who really doesn't have like a huge following. I just think

00:02:39.320 that she's interesting because she does such absurd things like take purity rings from people all over

00:02:45.700 the country. They mailed in their purity rings and she made a gold vaginas tattoo. Her name is Nadia

00:02:50.740 Bowles Weber. I think she goes by the sarcastic Lutheran. Again, I don't think she has a huge

00:02:55.000 following because she doesn't really say anything except for just like, oh, it's cool to cuss and I'm

00:02:59.400 a Christian. But I just think that she's such a she's almost like a caricature of this whole movement

00:03:05.160 that we're about to talk about. So they usually claim here's how you can kind of detect who is part of

00:03:11.180 this messy Christian subculture. They usually claim to have come from some sort of a strict

00:03:18.560 Christian background. That's not true of all of them, may not even be true of all the names that

00:03:22.080 I just listed, but they typically claim to have come from a strict Christian evangelical background,

00:03:27.100 maybe from some kind of like fundamentalist, what they would describe fundamentalist Baptist church.

00:03:32.420 And the reason why they say that is because they want you to know or they want you to think that

00:03:37.140 they already know the Bible and that they already know all of your preconceived notions.

00:03:40.960 So they don't actually have to take your criticism. They can just say, oh, well, I came from this

00:03:45.640 background and I already know everything. And this is the conclusion that I've come to. They claim to be

00:03:50.680 enlightened in that way. So they've come from this strict Christian background and now they have a new

00:03:56.020 discovery of what it really means to be a Christian. They had some sort of epiphany. This is another

00:04:01.240 characteristic. They had some sort of epiphany in their life that this is not what God really wanted,

00:04:06.240 that he didn't really want his children to be following all of these rules, to be weighed down

00:04:11.840 with what the Bible says, that he's so much bigger than these ancient texts. This is actually something

00:04:18.820 that you see even in Bethel church, the teachers in Bethel church saying, you know, don't put God in

00:04:24.000 a box. Like God is bigger than the Bible. You'll hear things like that. He transcends, he transcends,

00:04:31.820 you know, the, I don't want to say they wouldn't say the word of God, but he transcends scripture. He doesn't

00:04:37.660 really care about all of the things that we do, all these petty things that we struggle with. He doesn't

00:04:42.660 really care about that. As long as we try really hard or as long as we are being ourselves and we're kind to

00:04:48.540 other people, that's all God really cares about. That's what you'll hear from a lot of these people. They then

00:04:54.100 attempt to charm their audience with kind of quirky anecdotes about just how imperfect they are,

00:05:00.060 how non-traditional they are, how rebellious they are. They'll a lot of times use cuss words to show

00:05:05.800 like, I'm real, you guys, I'm super real. Um, they claim to know the real Christianity. They claim to

00:05:14.740 have the only, or the only kind of real relationship with the real Jesus, because they have been freed in

00:05:21.380 their words from legalism. Uh, they always use this word messy. They use it a lot. Life is beautiful

00:05:28.100 and messy. Grace is messy relationship with Jesus. It's messy. Everything is messy. It's all messy and

00:05:34.400 it's a glorified, beautiful mess. And we should all celebrate that. Um, now all of this is very

00:05:40.340 attractive to a lot of people who are looking for some kind of spiritual meaning, but they're not really

00:05:45.360 interested in self-sacrifice and self-denial. Uh, they want, uh, they, they want to feel some kind

00:05:52.760 of sense of belonging, some kind of feel of transcendence, some kind of feeling like they

00:05:56.380 are a part of something that's bigger than, than themselves without having to be attached to the,

00:06:01.700 uh, traditional, what they would consider a stereotype of some kind of bigoted, legalistic

00:06:07.820 Christian. So that's what the, those are the kinds of people that this kind of thinking attracts

00:06:12.420 and this attracts women in particular. Um, and I want to give a background on that on kind of where,

00:06:18.220 how we got here and how, how, how we got here. If I can say that grammatically correctly, I'm not

00:06:25.060 sure that I just did is actually part of it is legitimate. There's a legitimate reason why these

00:06:31.800 voices are attractive. And there is a legitimate pushback to be had to how Christianity for a lot of

00:06:39.620 used to be or used to be portrayed. So that happens a lot. You have, uh, you know, faith is a certain

00:06:47.180 way. Doctrines are a certain way. Uh, there's a certain kind of trend in the church and then it

00:06:52.140 swings the other direction. And that's kind of what happened. And usually it is somewhere along that

00:06:58.860 swing, uh, of the pendulum from one into the other that the truth actually exists. So let me just

00:07:04.920 explain it. This will make more sense once I actually get into what I'm talking about. So

00:07:08.680 the truth, uh, the truth is this is true that women are under a lot of pressure. Like I said,

00:07:14.300 women are typically attracted to this kind of messy Christian message. Uh, women are under a lot of

00:07:21.240 pressure. Men are under a lot of unique pressure too. It's just, it's different than the pressure

00:07:25.860 that women are under, but they're under a lot of pressure as well. But the kind of pressure that

00:07:29.200 women are under, uh, we feel a lot of times like we are expected to be pretty and small and strong

00:07:36.240 and sporty and, and fine and gentle and bold. And if we're a boy mom, then we have to, uh, be a super

00:07:44.480 awesome, fun, adventurous boy mom. If we're a girl mom, we have to be this sweet, perfect, organized

00:07:50.560 girl mom. Uh, we feel like we also have to be a hustling entrepreneur, a put together Christian who

00:07:55.600 knows their Bible, who goes to church at free Sunday with perfectly shaved legs and a cute sundress on.

00:08:00.780 That's how a lot of women feel like they have to be like, they have to live up to this perfect

00:08:06.800 Christian suburban stereotype. Um, and there has been in evangelical circles in the past. I would

00:08:13.800 say that this is not really true very much anymore, but in the past there was this sentiment. I'm not

00:08:19.780 saying it was based in reality, but it was a sentiment that women have to be perfectly poised.

00:08:24.320 Proverbs 31 women in, uh, every way, every day, they aren't allowed to show their sweat. They're not

00:08:30.080 allowed to show anger at their husbands. This is a very real feeling that a lot of Christians have

00:08:35.400 had over the past 50 to 60 years. I mean, probably before that too, but I'm kind of talking

00:08:39.120 modern day. And so over the past decade, a little longer than that, you have a lot of Christians

00:08:45.720 speaking up both men and women, but especially women saying, hang on, hang on fellow ladies. Is that

00:08:51.120 really what it means to be a Christian? Do I really have to have it all together all the time? Is that

00:08:56.340 really what it means to follow Christ? And so then you have these influencers come along,

00:09:01.160 some of whom I've already listed. And then some other ones who say, no, it's not. That's the,

00:09:06.360 that's not what God calls us to, uh, it's okay to not always look and sound perfect. Remember,

00:09:11.460 there's this thing called grace. Remember, we're not supposed to be Pharisees. We're not supposed to

00:09:16.020 be these whitewashed tombs who have, um, decay on the inside. Remember God knows everything. He already

00:09:24.240 knows who you really are. And Jesus makes it possible to be completely open with him. And

00:09:27.820 here's the thing that is true. These things, these premises are true. And part of this shift

00:09:33.940 away from perfectionism into the acknowledgement of grace, uh, was a good shift in many ways.

00:09:41.480 It is important. All of us benefited from this change when it initially started happening, because

00:09:47.320 it really came out of, at first it came out of this genuine desire to have a true dynamic relationship

00:09:56.540 with Christ. If any of you are familiar with the young restless reformed movement that really

00:10:02.400 boomed around 2006, I would say to 2010. And of course the effects of that still linger in a very good

00:10:09.800 way today. Uh, it was this movement of young people starting to care about theology, starting to care

00:10:16.660 about the Bible. It became something bigger. Christianity became something bigger than going

00:10:21.540 to church two times a week with your parents and grandparents and wearing a purity ring. It became

00:10:26.500 a relationship. It became worship. It became real rather than being static and stagnant. It became

00:10:32.540 something that you could learn and grow into and actually be sanctified. And that was all good. It was a

00:10:37.760 wonderful, I think it was a wonderful impetus for the gospel. I, and I don't want to say caught up in,

00:10:45.420 I don't want to say I was caught up in that because that sounds like a pejorative or it sounds like a

00:10:49.320 negative, but I was deeply affected by that. So it was 2009 for me that this, that Christianity really

00:10:56.620 started grabbing hold of my heart and mind. I was raised a Christian, went to a Baptist church with

00:11:02.380 my parents, with my grandmother, my entire life. I had said the sinner's prayer, gotten baptized when I was

00:11:07.880 young and I knew all of this stuff, but it wasn't until about 2009 that I had this awesome Bible

00:11:14.700 teacher who really made us think about theological issues for the first time, that I realized that there

00:11:19.660 was this rich, dynamic reality in the Christian faith and that reading the Bible was actually

00:11:24.740 interesting. It was more than that. It was fascinating. And I started loving, learning more about God and what

00:11:32.040 His Word says and having this personal relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit. That's when all of that

00:11:37.680 started happening to me. I stopped going to the church that my parents were going to. I started going to a

00:11:41.900 non-denominational church. I read, I was starting to read C.S. Lewis probably for the first, for probably

00:11:48.020 for the first time, maybe I had read him before. I mean, of course, Chronicles of Narnia, but I started

00:11:51.900 reading mere Christianity. I started reading, uh, screw tape letters and great divorce. I started reading

00:11:57.540 Tim Keller. I started listening to this pastor called, uh, named Matt Chandler. And they were talking

00:12:02.380 about this amazing gospel and this amazing intellectualism that I had never associated with Christianity

00:12:08.680 before. I started listening to John Piper. I heard of John MacArthur for this first time. All of these

00:12:14.540 teachers that were awakening me to the beauty and the power of the Bible and the gospel and Christianity

00:12:21.040 became real for me. And that's what happened to a lot of young people at the time. And so you have

00:12:26.800 all of these pastors and all of these influencers who all of a sudden became famous. It wasn't just

00:12:31.980 Beth Moore anymore. It wasn't just, you know, a few pastors. It was all of these pastors who now had

00:12:37.600 podcasts, who now had, were starting to get social media. And so, um, there was kind of this awakening

00:12:44.840 around this time among young people to the gospel and to the reality of grace. And it wasn't just this

00:12:51.420 stagnant legalistic thing anymore. Um, and that was a good thing. Like I said, I benefited from that,

00:12:58.920 but with every good shift, with every good change, there comes bad. And there comes, um,

00:13:04.540 there comes a point where some people swing too far in the other direction. And so if before this

00:13:10.300 time, there was a large chunk of evangelicalism that just held fast to this whole, as long as you

00:13:16.600 say the sinner's prayer and go to church on Sunday, you're perfectly fine and you look good and your

00:13:20.380 family's put together and everything's perfect and you don't struggle. If that was the stereotype

00:13:25.060 before it kind of moved in the other direction and it got into a really good place. And then you have

00:13:30.340 some people that swung all the way in the other direction, people who have always existed, but now

00:13:34.780 have big platforms who said, well, none of that matters. None of the rules matter. None of God's

00:13:42.100 dynamics that he set up in the Bible matter. None of the structure matters. None of the holiness

00:13:46.520 matters. It's all legalism. As long as we feel that God is real, as long as we feel that God is good,

00:13:52.500 as long as we feel that we're doing what God has called us to do, then we're all perfectly fine.

00:13:57.240 And that is where this messy Christian trends kind of came from. It's this idea that the rules don't

00:14:07.840 matter at all, that the Bible doesn't matter at all, that all religion is bad. Religion became

00:14:13.600 this dirty word for a lot of people, even though that's not biblical. That's not biblical that religion

00:14:19.200 is bad. Pure religion, as described in the Bible, is taking care of widows and orphans, living a

00:14:26.340 righteous life is not bad. But all of that stuff became seen as bad. And I'm not trying to say by

00:14:32.500 the way that the young restless reform movement had anything to do necessarily, or it had, I don't

00:14:39.800 want to equate it in any way to this messy Christian thing that I'm talking about, because it's not the

00:14:45.360 same. There are plenty of young reformed people, me included, that are still passionate about theology

00:14:51.180 and care about the gospel and care about, you know, what the Bible actually says. I'm just saying

00:14:56.600 some people kind of, I think, used the ignition of that or used the passion that was born out of that,

00:15:05.360 and they took it in the wrong direction. So that's what I'm trying to say. They started saying,

00:15:09.460 you know, God doesn't care about what you do at all. Rebellion is funny. Disobedience is trendy.

00:15:15.180 Holiness is just this laughable concept that no one should care about. And it, you had a lot of

00:15:21.040 influencers having this radical misinterpretation of scripture to fit what's culturally cool. And

00:15:28.620 they call it nuance. And that's what we're seeing today. That's been happening, like I said, for a

00:15:34.660 while, but it is especially popular today. This idea of messy Christianity, messy, has become the

00:15:42.040 glorification of sin and the cheapness of grace. And that is a problem. It is the flagrant

00:15:51.100 boasting of sin that is done in the name of vulnerability and relatability. I know we talk

00:15:56.560 obviously about being relatable on this podcast. That's the title of this podcast, but it is never

00:16:01.500 an excuse to glorify or justify sin. And if you think that that's what this podcast is, then you need

00:16:07.980 to tell me because that's a problem. So how do we detect if someone is this kind of messy Christian,

00:16:15.040 one who has swung too far in the other direction to the point of where they are saying what they're

00:16:21.580 talking about is no longer Christianity? Well, I think it's pretty easy because the number one

00:16:26.380 question that you should ask yourself when you're listening to all teachers, me include, I mean,

00:16:30.460 I'm not, I wouldn't call myself a teacher, but you should be thinking when you're listening to me talk,

00:16:35.120 is what she is saying in line with scripture. If what I'm saying is not in line with scripture,

00:16:39.900 then you need to tune me out and send me an email and say, yo, you said this, but this is what

00:16:45.800 scripture says. And some of you guys have done that. Some of it has been legit. Some of it, not so much,

00:16:51.020 but that's important for you guys to do. Do not take my word for it. I am not your authority.

00:16:56.480 Scripture is our authority, both of our authority. And at the end of the day, if we can go back to

00:17:00.320 scripture and say, here is what God's word says, we're both wrong or one of us is wrong,

00:17:04.240 whatever. That's what we need to do. So when you're listening to anyone, but especially these

00:17:08.960 kind of trendy Christians who seem to have a large following, we should ask ourselves is what

00:17:13.880 they're saying in line with scripture. Second question to when they talk about sin, if they

00:17:20.180 talk about sin, that's another big thing. Are they citing it as a struggle, a real struggle that they are

00:17:25.800 trying through the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome? Do they hate their sin as we are called to

00:17:32.900 as believers or are they laughing at their sin? Now I've been guilty of this. I think we probably

00:17:37.440 all have that. There are contexts and moments in which I laugh at, you know, my sassiness on Twitter,

00:17:43.100 even though I know that sometimes that is a sin and, um, that I have lashed out at people on social

00:17:50.780 media. That is a sin. And I've laughed at that before, but the truth of the matter is, is that

00:17:54.800 it's not funny to sin. And it is a struggle for me in the sense that I, I really am trying

00:18:01.740 through the power of the Holy Spirit, not to act or speak in a way that doesn't glorify God.

00:18:06.440 Not easy for me. Sarcasm, easy for me. Clapping back, I don't even like that term. Easy for me.

00:18:13.360 Holding my tongue, not so easy, but something that we are called to do as Christians. Um, so

00:18:18.920 first question that I said is what they are saying in line with scripture. Now, the woman I listed at

00:18:25.460 the beginning, uh, ask yourself if in their lives and in their words that are they in line with what

00:18:34.120 the God of the Bible says? I think that Glennon Doyle is probably the most explicitly and obviously

00:18:39.520 not a Christian. And I don't say that to be judgmental. I say that from her own words. Uh,

00:18:45.680 she said just a few months ago on Instagram that the older she gets, the more she realizes that she

00:18:50.040 doesn't know who God is, that, uh, it's less of a someone and more of a something, something like

00:18:55.840 just a current kind of pushing us through life to be more loving and kind and tender or something

00:19:01.320 like that. She actually likes to call God. She, so it wouldn't be he, she tweeted that the other day.

00:19:07.400 And so that's obviously that's not Christianity. So I'm just taking her at her word. I'm not trying

00:19:12.500 to make any assumptions, although you could probably look at the fruit of her life and deduce that,

00:19:17.480 but she said herself, she's not really sure who God is. So I don't think it would be fair to call

00:19:21.840 her someone who believes in the God of the Bible and that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life.

00:19:26.000 Um, so ask yourself in regards to other teachers. And like I said, every teacher who claims to have,

00:19:32.740 uh, a more nuanced faith than those, uh, evil traditional evangelicals, those evil Baptists and

00:19:39.380 Presbyterians. So ask yourself, uh, are they asking interesting theological questions when they

00:19:45.800 are kind of pushing back on the traditional mode of thinking? Are they asking interesting theological

00:19:51.020 questions or are they just trying to get a reaction? And what I mean by interesting is that

00:19:56.380 in their searching, are they, and they're questioning their vulnerability, transparency,

00:20:01.480 whatever, are they actually trying to seek truth that is in scripture? Um, are they using scripture

00:20:10.040 as their ultimate source of wisdom and guidance, or are they relying on their own feelings? Because

00:20:14.820 the truth is it's okay to have questions. It's okay to not know everything, but at the end, I,

00:20:19.720 there's plenty of theological things that I don't know. There's, I would say, I don't know if I could

00:20:23.920 weigh it a thousand million bajillion pounds of things that I don't know about scripture. But at the

00:20:29.660 end of the day, I know my source for the answer for these things is scripture. And if I disagree with

00:20:36.160 scripture, it's because I'm wrong, not because scripture is. So that is my mode of thinking

00:20:41.380 always. And no matter what scripture is inerrant, that is the only source of wisdom that I have is,

00:20:49.720 is God and God's word. And so it's okay to have, it's okay to have questions. It's okay to have

00:20:55.400 wonderings. It's okay to kind of push back on something that you've heard a pastor that you

00:20:59.160 really like say, as long as your pushback goes back to scripture and not your own feeling.

00:21:06.160 So when you hear these people asking these questions or pushing back against the norm and

00:21:10.440 saying, you know, this is a nuanced question, ask yourself if they're just trying to get a reaction,

00:21:15.220 if they're just trying to be culturally cool, if they're just trying to get off the hook about a

00:21:19.240 hard thing the Bible says, or if they're saying, okay, scripture is my authority. I'm trying to figure

00:21:24.240 this out earnestly. Second question, how do they talk about sin? Do they regularly, regularly,

00:21:31.760 that's a hard word, regularly talk about sin as if it's just kind of like this quirky part of their

00:21:37.000 personality or, you know, I'm, I'm an Enneagram seven. And so, you know, this is just, this is just

00:21:44.340 my, this is just my thing that I do. And really what they're talking about is a sin. Like, for example,

00:21:50.360 I am an Enneagram eights. I'm not a seven. That was just an example. I'm an Enneagram eight. And so

00:21:56.160 if I said, I don't know, whatever it any, if I was like, yeah, you know, I'm just prideful.

00:22:03.020 I'm just prideful. I just, I'm just prideful. I'm just arrogant. It's great. It's, I just,

00:22:09.840 I just can't help it. And God loves that about me. That would be wrong. That would be wrong. Or if I

00:22:14.740 said that like anger was my struggle and I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm just hot tempered girl,

00:22:19.100 just lash out at people all the time. And I laughed at that. That's not funny. I mean,

00:22:24.100 that's a sin. I mean, you can talk about it, I guess, in a more lighthearted way, but it's not

00:22:29.560 something to trivialize. It's something to say, you know, God is working in me and through me on this

00:22:35.820 particular struggle that I have. Do they claim to have quote, fresh perspectives on how to look at sin

00:22:45.460 in order to make us feel better about sinning? Do they try to diminish sin as a tool of legalism

00:22:53.240 or the patriarchy or of, I don't know, judgmental people rather than calling sin what it is as the

00:23:02.060 Bible defines it? Do they use the term love to mean acceptance of sinfulness? Do they use the term

00:23:09.900 acceptance to mean love of sinfulness? Do they claim that those who talk about sin or care about

00:23:15.740 sin are just bigoted? Do they claim that God isn't really concerned with certain sins, that he's really

00:23:22.320 more concerned with you being yourself? These are the questions to consider when you are looking at some

00:23:30.340 of your favorite influencers, especially those who claim to be nuanced and messy and different

00:23:35.560 and counter-cultural or counter-traditional Christian. And here's the thing. Life is messy.

00:23:43.680 I don't want to say that this word is inherently bad or everyone who uses this word is wrong. Life

00:23:48.120 is messy. It's not perfect. And our striving for constant perfection is a sin. It is wrong. It's

00:23:55.440 detrimental to our relationship with God because its roots are in pride. It is a symptom of thinking

00:24:00.580 that we can control things better than God can or things work out better if we control it rather

00:24:06.220 than when God controls it. So there is truth to this phrase that we hear a lot, like let go and let

00:24:11.440 God. We are not meant to have it all together. God does know everything. We don't need to pretend that

00:24:17.580 we are better than we are. The beauty about Jesus is that you don't have to clean yourself up before you

00:24:23.680 go to God. And in fact, you can't clean yourself up. And so it really is useless. We all do sin. None of us

00:24:30.080 is perfect. And it's okay to be open and to be transparent about that. And it's actually a good

00:24:35.000 thing. Sharing in our struggles is good. We're told to confess our sins to one another. These are all

00:24:40.080 good things. And so I don't want to discount all of this or the, some of the underlying parts of this

00:24:46.380 as completely and totally wrong and swing back in the other direction. Legalism is wrong. Just being

00:24:53.140 pious or at least externally pious is wrong, but so is denying that sin exists, denying the seriousness

00:25:01.900 of sin and obfuscating or covering up the true call that we have as Christians to holiness, to be set

00:25:09.900 apart. A verse that you'll hear a lot from these people, if they do quote scripture at all, it's rare,

00:25:15.100 but if they do, they would say, you know, Romans 3, 23 says for all have sinned and fallen short of

00:25:20.680 the glory of God. That's it into story. We've all sinned. No big deal. That's it. But, but the next

00:25:30.020 verse context is so important. Who knew the next verse says, so it says, it starts out saying 23 for

00:25:37.260 all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And this is the next verse and are justified by

00:25:42.920 his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a

00:25:48.040 propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. So the question is, what does this mean for those

00:25:54.940 of us who are justified by grace, who have been redeemed by Christ, who paid for our sins, whom

00:26:00.580 we trust in by faith? We have all sinned and those who trust by faith are justified by grace. That is

00:26:07.960 great. Does that mean though, that we keep sinning because of the grace that we have been given?

00:26:15.260 Well, Romans 6, 1 answers that. Most of you probably know this verse too. What shall we say then? God

00:26:20.400 through Paul says, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to

00:26:27.920 sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were

00:26:33.380 baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just

00:26:39.120 as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.

00:26:46.400 Newness. And what does this newness of life look like? We find another answer in Romans chapter 12,

00:26:53.740 verse 2. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living

00:27:00.860 sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this

00:27:10.200 world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the

00:27:16.020 will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Second Corinthians 7, 1 through 3. Since we have these

00:27:25.780 promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to

00:27:32.240 completion in the fear of God. So sanctification, this process throughout our lives of becoming more like

00:27:39.700 Christ, the becoming more righteous, holy, or more set apart, comes part and parcel with knowing Jesus. It is not

00:27:47.860 that we have an excuse to sin. It is not that we rejoice in our errors. It is that we hate our sin and that we

00:27:55.460 strive through the power of the Holy Spirit to be conformed to Christ. We hear so often that God doesn't want us to

00:28:01.520 try, that he doesn't want us to feel any fear, any guilt over our sin, that all he wants for us is to be shameless and

00:28:08.740 authentic and accepting of our identities. That is not true. He commands us to fear him and to take

00:28:17.480 sanctification seriously. He says that in him, we are a new creation. We have died to sin. We have died to

00:28:24.040 our former selves. Philippians 2, 11 through 13 says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed,

00:28:30.540 so now work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will

00:28:38.200 and to work for his good pleasure. Ephesians 4, 13 through 14, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of

00:28:46.440 the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that

00:28:54.060 we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human

00:29:01.720 cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Non-Christians are moved by the waves.

00:29:08.200 Baby Christians are also moved by the waves as they are being sanctified. Do the so-called messy

00:29:15.960 Christians you follow seem to stand firm on the promises of God? Or are they constantly changing

00:29:21.660 their doctrine to make sure that they don't hurt anyone's feelings or to fit in with the culture or be

00:29:26.880 relevant or relatable? Now, I'm not talking about people who change their minds. They're genuinely

00:29:32.820 learning more about scripture and they are changing their beliefs, altering their beliefs to align more

00:29:38.020 with scripture. That is what I am in a constant state of doing. Something right now that I have

00:29:43.240 been realizing and learning is about justice and what God says about justice and what it looks like

00:29:48.100 for a Christian to care about and enact justice here on earth and what it actually means for God's

00:29:54.620 will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I thought that I had that figured out probably a month ago,

00:29:59.500 and I've realized through the listening of people that know more about the Bible than I do,

00:30:03.540 people that I trust, people who are going back to scripture and the reading of scripture that

00:30:07.280 myself, that maybe I didn't have that figured out. And I'm trying, and I think that I even had some

00:30:12.380 hypocrisy in my thinking about that because I was trying to fit my faith into what I thought

00:30:17.160 was politically true. And it just got confusing to me. And I lived in this cognitive dissonance and now

00:30:22.220 I'm learning, I'm learning and my views are changing to align more with scripture on that, not less,

00:30:28.300 but more. So I'm not talking about that. That is what we should all be doing. I am talking about

00:30:33.840 the changing your mind based on feelings and trends or the people you are following,

00:30:38.760 these so-called messy Christians doing that. If that's what they're doing, then that's not right.

00:30:44.280 Now, here's a kind of a large chunk of scripture. Here's what Ephesians 4, 17 through 24 has to say

00:30:49.440 about that. Now this I say, and I testify in the Lord, this is God through Paul, that you must no longer

00:30:56.680 walk as the Gentiles do in this particular context. He is talking about people who are not Christians

00:31:01.580 as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding,

00:31:07.540 alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness

00:31:11.800 of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice

00:31:17.180 every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming, assuming that you have

00:31:25.800 heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs

00:31:33.660 to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed. There's that word

00:31:40.060 again, renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God

00:31:46.720 in true righteousness and holiness. Your rebellion might be relatable, but it is not regenerative.

00:31:54.920 I really wanted to come up with an alliteration, so I hope that makes logical sense. Our rebellion

00:32:00.720 might be relatable, but it is not regenerative in that it does not sanctify and it does not help to

00:32:09.400 sanctify other people unless you are sharing your vulnerability and your rebellion as a part of the

00:32:17.340 sanctification process in that you are by the power of the Holy Spirit working on bringing that sin to

00:32:23.640 death and learning to be more like Christ. You are working out your salvation in fear and trembling.

00:32:31.040 It is not something to laugh at or to trivialize. And I say that to myself just as much. It's easy to do

00:32:36.520 that about sins that we see as petty. But the fact of the matter is, is that God takes holiness very

00:32:41.420 seriously and that Jesus died to save us, to reconcile us to God, not so that we could be

00:32:47.240 slaves to sin and dead in sin, but that we could be alive in Christ and more like him. That is part

00:32:51.860 of the freedom and the joy and the liberation that comes with knowing Christ on this side of heaven.

00:32:56.460 And on the next side of heaven, guess what? On the other side, we don't have to worry about this

00:33:00.140 sin anymore. We don't have to worry about the struggle and our most vulnerable and authentic

00:33:04.220 selves, as so many people say, will be holy and righteous and full and whole. And we won't have

00:33:11.880 to worry about this back and forth anymore. As Paul talks about, I think it's in Romans 7, hating what

00:33:17.100 he does and wanting to do right and feeling like he can't. Yes, that is the constant struggle of

00:33:22.140 sanctification. But if you listen to Paul's words in that chapter, he hates his sin. He hates it and he

00:33:28.440 wants it to die and we all should. So beware of this messy Christianity. And I say messy as just

00:33:35.200 kind of like an overarching description. Again, not that the word messy in and of itself is bad or

00:33:41.840 wrong, or we should never use it, but just beware, be discerning, use scripture to know if these

00:33:47.680 influencers are really pushing you into the truth of God that is found in scripture or pushing you away

00:33:51.920 and closer into your feelings. It is the God of self-love. It is the God of self, period. And it's not

00:33:58.040 going to sanctify you and it's not even going to justify you. So you should have nothing to do

00:34:03.980 with it. Be careful. We all have to be careful. And I, gosh, I've been thinking about this recently

00:34:09.260 too. Another thing that I'm learning, we've got to be careful about the things that we put in our

00:34:12.000 minds. I don't want to get into a Game of Thrones. I don't want to get into a Game of Thrones tangent

00:34:17.280 here, but that's been something I've been thinking about. It was wanting to watch Game of Thrones because

00:34:21.600 so many people have watched it, but knowing that that's not something that I should do because I don't

00:34:25.300 think it's glorifying. I don't think it's sanctifying. There's nothing good or lovely or pure

00:34:29.180 about it that I should be watching. But at the same time, I look at my own hypocrisy in my life

00:34:32.880 and I realize I've watched The Sopranos. I've watched House of Cards. I loved those things. And

00:34:38.060 so that's another thing that I am learning and realizing that I have sinfulness in and I have

00:34:45.880 pointed fingers at other people, but I have been guilty of that. So I don't even know why I said that.

00:34:50.080 I think to just be careful about the things that we're putting in our minds and to take those kinds of

00:34:54.600 things very seriously because God clearly does, not because he is sitting there necessarily with

00:35:00.840 a rule book and tallying things because Jesus already paid the price for us and cleaned the

00:35:05.680 slate for us, but because we live in a way that is worthy of our calling. That is how Paul describes it.

00:35:12.680 Because we have been saved, because God is working in us, because God predestined the good works that

00:35:17.620 we are to do, we are supposed to live out to that identity. And that is if the influencers that you

00:35:24.020 are following are not calling you to do that or not encouraging you to do that, then you need to

00:35:29.220 stop following them, including me, by the way, including me. Or at least you know that if you

00:35:34.240 email me and tell me that, then I will be responsive and we can have a biblically based conversation and

00:35:40.500 hopefully we can both get better through that. But anyway, I hope that all made sense. Oh, I said that

00:35:46.300 I told someone that I was going to answer a relationship question for them. Okay, it's a

00:35:54.620 pretty short, it's a pretty short relationship question. I'll just do it really quickly. So

00:35:58.820 basically this person says that she has been dating this person for a long time and that she feels like

00:36:05.180 they're best friends and that he is a follower of Jesus. But she related to my story when I talked

00:36:10.060 about the person that I dated in college, had all those things too. Great guy, Christian, all of that

00:36:16.080 thought that probably I was going to marry him had been dating for about three years. But I knew in

00:36:20.840 my heart of hearts from the very beginning that he was not the person I was supposed to marry. And I

00:36:24.060 just had this like nagging doubt in me from the beginning. And I was constantly convincing myself

00:36:29.860 because he was a good guy and a Christian that it would be fine. I should marry him even though we

00:36:33.580 had all of these differences. And I didn't think he was funny at all. Told myself I was being

00:36:37.120 superficial. At the end of the day, thank God that we broke up. Literally, thank God that we broke up

00:36:41.960 because I never had that feeling of doubt at all with the person that I'm married to now. But I

00:36:47.080 doubted with him. So her question is about that. And how do you how do you know, I guess? And it's

00:36:55.120 hard to say people used to always tell me when you know, you know, and I used to roll my eyes because

00:36:59.240 I didn't think that that was true. But then it ended up being true for me. And here's what I'll say

00:37:06.020 because every relationship is different. Some people go back and forth and do have doubts for a long

00:37:09.900 time to end up getting married. And it's wonderful. So I can't tell you for sure what's the right thing

00:37:16.660 is in that. Now, I will say if you find yourself convincing yourself to be with this person, you

00:37:24.160 should not be with them. That's I mean, that's just my and I'm not saying that's the infallible

00:37:29.080 word of relationships. I'm not because this is not the Bible that I'm drawing this from. I'm drawing

00:37:35.120 this from experience. If you find yourself constantly telling yourself, oh, no, no, no.

00:37:41.580 Yeah, they do check the boxes off the list or oh, I mean, they are a good Christian or OK. Yeah,

00:37:47.000 this is no, this is good. This is right. I mean, my family likes him. And yeah, he has these things.

00:37:52.540 But if something in you is just has been nagging you and you've got that you've got that thing

00:37:57.480 inside you. And I know this is so abstract, but I mean, feelings, not all feelings are bad.

00:38:02.500 Not all emotions are bad and intuition isn't bad and the Holy Spirit does work. So I would not

00:38:10.860 discount that. That's what I'll say. If you find yourself convincing yourself that you should be

00:38:15.520 with someone, you probably, probably should not be with them because that's probably not going to go

00:38:22.680 away. It is much better to be sad and single than to be sad and tied to someone. You would rather feel

00:38:32.220 sad and single than sad and trapped. Right. So romantic love is a wonderful, beautiful thing.

00:38:37.500 It's not all bad. Agape love is much better. It's the unconditional love that you have, even when

00:38:42.860 the feelings go away. It's the commitment. It's the covenant love that you say that you are going

00:38:47.300 to keep forever in sickness and in health and in for richer or for poorer. That's what you commit to

00:38:54.420 when you are getting married, especially in a Christian marriage reflects Christ in the church.

00:38:58.980 It is a covenant. It's not meant to be broken. There are some exceptions to divorce that the

00:39:03.400 Bible gives, but all in all, a marriage is supposed to stand the test of time and the trials of life.

00:39:10.780 And romantic love, though, is a beautiful impetus into that relationship that I think is a gift of

00:39:18.080 common grace that we get today that hasn't always been true throughout history, that people require

00:39:23.800 that romantic love is required before getting into marriage. I think it's a beautiful,

00:39:27.100 wonderful thing of living in 2019. Where are we? 2019? Yeah. 2019 that you get to fall in love with

00:39:35.760 someone and be attracted to them before actually getting married. I think that's a beautiful,

00:39:41.020 wonderful thing. And you should feel those things. I think y'all can correct me if I'm wrong. I think

00:39:46.160 you should feel those things very strongly before you get married. And I certainly did for my husband

00:39:52.300 and I never looked back. We personally, we only dated for five months. We're engaged for four

00:39:58.740 months. We knew each other for maybe even less than a year. By the time we got married, never looked

00:40:04.700 back once. Greatest decision besides following Christ that I've ever made. And so I never had to

00:40:11.920 convince myself. Again, that's just my personal experience. So if you find yourself having that

00:40:16.740 nagging, this something isn't right, even if you can't put your finger on it, I would say it's best

00:40:22.320 to get yourself out of that situation. It's torment. It's I tried to say torment and torture at the same

00:40:27.320 time. It's both. It's torment. And you shouldn't, you shouldn't stress yourself with that. I personally

00:40:33.880 believe. Welcome, welcome pushback in that arena. Let me know what you think. Anyway, that's all I have

00:40:39.300 time for. This has been a long episode, but love you guys. And I'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:40:46.740 I'll see you back here on Wednesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 06, 2019

Ep 108 ｜ 'Messy' or Unholy？

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