Ferndale Tonight: Preferences Together

Meditate: Acts 2:44

Let me save you the letters and phone calls by saying that this doesn’t mean that all churches are right. They’re not.

That’s the second answer to this question. Some churches are just plain wrong. (That generates letters and calls from an entirely different set of folks, by the way.)

Keep in mind that Jesus warned us not everyone claiming to follow Him would be telling the truth. Remember “variation?” One of the most common frauds in the arts is to sign someone else’s name to something you made up. And that’s definitely been done with Jesus’ name.

But it hasn’t been done everywhere. And since we’re focusing here on believers, on the Church, let’s talk about that instead.

One of the reasons “all the believers” aren’t “together” in our day is that we’ve mistaken our own preferences for God’s law. In orchestra terms (getting tired of music references?) when it comes to church, we really would prefer the bassoon choir to the orchestra.

Now, most of us aren’t so caught up in our preferences that we look at everyone outside our congregation and consider them heathens. But how do we think of those believers who aren’t part of congregations like ours?

Are they “the competition?”

Are they just misguided?

Or are they family, brothers and sisters in God’s family serving the same Lord but with a different calling?

And if they are brothers and sisters whose company we’re not willing to enjoy, then we have to answer, “Why?”

The answer to this last question gives us the third major answer to that question: Why the different churches? We prefer it that way.

For reasons ranging from culture to style to doctrine to history to sheer pettiness, we all have our preferences and our reasons. Some are good and some are not.

Here’s the warning that goes with that: I permit my daughters their preferences in many things. They enjoy different types of activities and foods. They have different ways of expressing their feelings. They even approach me differently; one likes to talk, another to do things together, a third to just sit quietly together. It’s part of who they are and how God has made them. And that’s all fine.

Right up to the point where I hear someone say, “I wish you weren’t my sister.” That‘s an invitation to judgment. I can’t imagine God views us otherwise.