It’s entirely out of context, but I’m often reminded of Shrek telling Donkey, “That’ll do donkey, that’ll do”. I’m reminded of this whenever I see a church do just enough to make it seem like they are engaging their community. Or when I’m tempted to cut a few corners in sermon preparation. And often when I think of my own sanctification. “That’ll do” is the enemy of full on obedience.
This is also why I love how Paul writes in Ephesians. He doesn’t allow us to merely take off the old but admonishes us to put on the new as well. As I’ve been preaching through this section of Scripture I’ve found myself repeatedly saying, “without putting on the new clothes we are still just naked and disobedient”. Notice how he doesn’t call the thief to merely quit stealing he also admonishes him to be a glad-hearted giver. He gets to the heart of the matter.
Consider Eve in the Garden of Eden. What was she doing when she plucked that fruit? What lie did the serpent get her to chew upon? It was the lie that there is something she didn’t have. Something that, he made her believe, rightly belonged to her and that God was holding out on her. So she grabbed at the fruit that wasn’t hers and she took a bite. She stole a piece of fruit that was forbidden. And since then the human heart has tended towards the heart of the thief, “there is something I don’t have and so I’m going to take it and make it mine”.
But there’s a special little way that we Westerners have answered the problem of the thieves heart. We assume, “Ah, the problem with the thief is that he isn’t willing to work. If he wants that fruit that isn’t his then by golly that’s his fault for not working hard enough. If he’d work harder then it’d rightly be his and he could enjoy it and celebrate it.”
But is that what Jesus says in the gospels? Is that Paul’s antidote in Ephesians 4:28? They go straight to the heart. And the heart of the thief is messed up. Consider why he steals in the first place. He views things as the source of his happiness and so given the opportunity he will take what he believes is going to provide happiness. But what happens in conversion? His pleasures are changed. He now views God and obedience to God as the supreme pleasure in his life.
This is why we cannot say the heart of the thief is changed just because he now got a job and started making good money. How do you know if the heart of a thief is changed? You know he is changed when he starts giving stuff away because he has more pleasure in God than in stuff. He no longer finds status and meaning in all of his stuff and so he can have loose hands and give things away to provide for the needs of someone else. He now sacrifices his wants for his brothers needs. That is the heart of a changed man. You see the gospel doesn’t just call us to stop doing stuff-it actually changes our hearts.
Gospel wrought transformation doesn’t stop at no longer doing the bad stuff it also puts on the new clothes.
This is where I’m convinced we have a long way to go in the area of racism and race relations within the church. I was shocked to hear of the church in Alabama, which from all accounts fired a pastor because he wanted to reach out to African-American students for VBS.
The response in defense of this decision is somewhat typical of churches who are perhaps in the process of taking off the sin of racism but are stuck at the “that’ll do” stage. They responded to the charge of racism by saying, “We invite anyone that comes into our door to join us at any time”. It’s wonderful that they might no longer slam the door in the face of an African-American. It’s great that Jim Crow laws no longer rule the day and they’d be more than happy to drink from the same water fountain. But is this positively putting on the new clothes?
I’d argue that the antidote to racism is not merely “we’ll accept anyone who comes through our doors”. The antidote to racism is to actively engage communities that are not necessarily like your own. A culture which was once plagued by racism cannot stop at “we’ll open our doors up to blacks now” but must actively engage the cultures they once sinned against. We cannot just wait for those who aren’t like us to come knocking on our doors—we must actively engage people of every tribe. It isn’t just that we let them drink our water fountains. It’s that our water fountains become OUR water fountains and we go together into white communities, black communities, and anywhere else that sinners need to hear of the only Savior.
So whether we are talking racism, theft, or any other area of sanctification let’s not settle with anymore “that’ll do’s”.
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Photo source: here
My daughter could hardly contain the smile on her face. She was getting to do what I’m confident she’d dreamed of doing for most of her life—ride a unicorn. Or maybe it was a rhino. Maybe a lion. I really can’t remember because I was too bored to pay much attention. Don’t get me wrong I was pretending to enjoy the ride, and getting a bit of joy from my daughter’s exuberant joy. But if it hadn’t been for her, I can guarantee that I wouldn’t have been riding that carousel.