Moral Causes

Moral causes, especially when taken up by believers, are nothing more than unredemptive energy spent to fix society through legislation, information, and democracy. There are elements of self righteousness woven through all such endeavors which misrepresent the gospel as cleaning the cup’s outside first with fleshly adherence to a morality that, which without Christ, leads to eternal death.
The gospel is not a spiritual scolding. It is wonderful news to a lost and dying race of sinners. And at the center of this message is Jesus. God is born as a man, dies as a substitute and a forgiving sacrifice, and resurrects from the dead. So often we have been divided into two over generalized groups. One side castigates sinners for being sinners and believes that is appropriate gospel garnish. The other side leaves the cross completely absent from their gospel because they believe it to be much too archaic and without relevance in this post modern mindset.
What sermon would be a looking glass into what the Spirit desires to preach to sinners? In the 2nd chapter of Acts we find a Spirit filled Peter delivering the very first evangelistic message after the resurrection. And just what was the theme of His message? Jesus - anointed, crucified, and resurrected! Not one mention of sin at all and yet their hearts were convicted and convinced concerning that person named Jesus. Where was the law of Moses in his gospel? Gone! Where was the careful exposition to convince them that they were sinners? It is not there. The Spirit Himself has been commissioned to convince men of sin, and when we pounce upon sinners, or even feel it necessary to deal extensively with sinners about their particular sin and sins, we abrogate His divine ministry.
On the other side of the coin some of you who believe that men like Rob Bell, Brian McClaren and Doug Paggit are just using a different and more intellectual approach, read Peter’s message which is permeated with teachings and references about one thing - the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus must be lifted up, and when men attempt to downplay and even erase Jesus and His death and resurrection from their teachings then they are misguided at best and heretics at worst. And please let me be perfectly clear about something. Some of my Calvinist/Reformed/Doctrines of Grace brethren use the law mixed in with the gospel and suppose it is necessary. I disagree, but I still consider them true brethren in Christ. With men like Bell and others I have no such confidence either way. Only God knows.
But this post is written to address the meaningless and often counter productive moral causes that many believers, either individually or en masse, take up and present themselves as advocates for such causes rather than believing followers of Jesus. This genre is actually a form of humanism and seeks to make man and society better by moral alignment. Fighting with the same carnal weapons that unbelievers use, they become embroiled in a war which is not Christ’s and cannot be won until He comes back to win it. Believers line up to object to strip clubs opening, and yet they have never prayed for, wept over, or gone into the highways to compel these girls to come to Jesus. That is not redemptive Christianity; that is moralism.
Believers spend millions to address the horror called abortion. Abortion is indeed murder, but the answer is us being Jesus and spreading His gospel and not spending time, energy, and money to overturn legislation. Some of these crisis pregnancy centers do a wonderful work that both cares for the mother’s situation as well as care for that mother’s soul. They are heroes in my eyes.
But the absolute worst cause that has become popular in these modern times is political and it deals with money. Many believers object to President Obama and other progressives because they are worried about the eradication of their wealth. Listen to the conservative talk shows and their battle cry centers on issues of personal wealth. Some of them even have as sponsors companies that sell gold, suggesting that is the best way to “protect your personal wealth”. And many of these men are supported and quoted by professing believers in Jesus Christ. Just which Jesus would be aligned with such hedonistic self righteousness?
We all have our opinions and feelings about things and issues, but dealing with morality and certain sins are meant as part of a journey of discipleship and are to be dealt with among believers and not part of a force feed ministry to the lost. And while we have been busy pointing out the sins in the world and the political arena, sin has become rampant within the church itself. While we trumpet “traditional marriage” divorce is raging in the church. Even the term “traditional marriage” leaves out the gospel, or even the Scriptures, and suggests that the reason for it is because we have always done it like that. And like screaming at a dead man we have come to believe that dead and lost sinners can change simply because we inform them or because we make them. What a twisted mess that mirrors nothing of the gospel.
But let us turn to our exclusive cause, the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ by lifting up Jesus Himself. We have no alternate “cause” than that of Jesus Himself. And the ministry of reconciliation that comes with preaching and living the gospel of Christ cannot, and must not, be diluted with subordinate causes that detour the hearts of the lost to things that cannot save. Look at the cross and with that we see the one and only cause we call redemption. Jesus did not die to make the world more moral, that is an impossibility. He died to reconcile sinners to God through the redemption that is only found in His blood. Abortion, homosexuality, and all the other issues have their place in teaching the church, but to the world we must lift up Jesus Christ and He must have all the preeminence. The gospel is not the tree trunk from which other branches grow as side issues that minister to the dark world. The gospel is the entire tree from which life can only come, and inventing pet issues and battling with the lost over issues that they cannot possibly understand just puts more nails into their coffins.
The dead man does not need his tie straightened, no, he needs a transfusion of life that places a new heart within his dead chest and see it beat a life giving flow of blood once more to all his extremities. Of course these causes make us feel righteous and valiant, and true as they may be, they are still detours and stumbling blocks to the grace of our Lord Jesus. The world doesn’t need to be pro-life, and in fact they never will be. And if the entire world became pro-life all at once it would not alter the eternal destiny of one single sinner. Only Jesus can change a sinner into a child of the living God, and that change has nothing to do with changing your view on any issue except for the issue of who is Jesus.
Jesus did not come to make people change their morality, that is residual to His mission. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. In fact, sometimes the good, at the expense of the best and needed, can lead to death. Imagine a medical doctor whose training, expertise, and calling is in heart transplant, and yet he seems preoccupied with selling mosquito repellent. And when we propagate issues and morality we have, however unintentionally, left the gospel of redemption and entered the gospel of condemnation. And the New Testament tells us that the ministry of condemnation is death. Brothers and sisters, lift up those hands, lips, and hearts and let them exclusively lift up the Lord Jesus and His offer of eternal life by faith in His finished work. That is our one and only cause.