Pride, platforms, and persecution
The other day, I saw an older man with grayed and grizzly whiskers standing in the middle of the road in nothing but his tighty-whities.
As I watched, he approached a fairly large group of small children, and before I knew what was happening, he turned his back to them, bent over, and started twerking.
In broad daylight.
I waited for someone from law enforcement to come and take care of this man, but they were all busy keeping crowds of people on the sidewalks and out of the streets.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this wasn’t any old man, and he wasn’t in any old street. He was an old man in a Pride parade, and I was watching a video that had gone viral just a few days earlier.
Please keep reading, as I can assure you this is not going to go where you think it is, regardless of which side of that parade you may be standing on.
The first reaction I had to that video (well, the second because the first reaction I had was that his tighty-whities weren’t quite tight enough) was this: if that man had done the same thing on any other street during any other month, he would have been arrested. But the platform of the Pride parade gave him a pass to do what almost everyone would see as wrong if the setting was different.
What if he had approached your family in the food court of a shopping mall and twerked for you? What if he stood up on an airplane and did that mid-flight? What if he was twerking on your lawn while your kids were playing in the sprinkler?
My point isn’t to push this to crazy extremes (some may argue that we’re already there, but you get the point), but to highlight what happens when we allow platforms to replace reason with an “anything goes” free-for-all.
And before any of you use my words as an excuse to launch “gospel grenades” at the people in those parades, may I suggest that culture has merely followed the example of religion? From Catholic priests, to Southern Baptist preachers and Charismatic leaders like Carl Lentz and others, we’ve seen the damage that pride and platforms can do in churches long before that old guy danced in the street. We’ve acted as if certain power positions are above the law, and as Peter wrote, “It’s time for judgment to begin with God’s household…” (1 Peter 4:17).
Said another way, before our country can experience a revival of morality, the church needs a revival of purity.
Before our country can experience a revival of morality, the church needs a revival of purity. Share on XWe want to have influence in the culture, but we don’t have integrity in the church! The result is that while we can speak truth, we won’t have positioned ourselves to be heard by the ones we’re speaking to.
I believe that God is purifying His church with fire, not just so that we’ll be pure, but also so that the message of the gospel will be delivered purely. Read the words Peter wrote just before the ones about judgment:
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. (1 Peter 4:12-16, emphasis mine)
Make no mistake, fire is coming, and people who deliver the gospel truth will be persecuted. But let’s make sure we’re suffering as Christians, not as hypocrites. Let’s do all that we can to hold people accountable for immorality, but let’s do it from a place of tested and inspected purity.
Our culture is headed over the cliff of immorality, and the church has been given the task of holding up the warning signs. Instead of putting hypocrites on our platforms, this is the time to bring holiness to the streets. This is what Peter was saying when he wrote:
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives… (2 Peter 3:11)
In other words, let’s live a life in front of others that they can’t refute, even when we speak truth to others that they won’t receive.
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