From Comfortable Faith To Costly Love In The Church

Forward to the book eau de Cult - Love In The First Church

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Transcript

Book Intro And Scripture Framing

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Ode Cult, Love in the First Church by Timothy Williams. For more information, stop by the Consider Podcast at www.consider.info. Ecclesiastes 117. Examining today's wisdom, folly, and madness. Unless otherwise noted, all scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, by the International Bible Society. Dedicated to all who seek more of the love of Christ in the Church, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Ephesians three sixteen through eighteen.

The Odorless Christian Problem

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Forward For most of my adult life I considered myself a Christian. However, I was a distinctly odorless kind of Christian. I didn't provoke a strong reaction in anyone. People didn't hate me, as Jesus said they would. At best, they found me mildly irritating at times. Nor did they really fall in love with me. For the most part, they thought I was a nice guy or a good friend. I was like a piece of rather uninteresting furniture, solid, reliable, functional, good to have around if you wanted something comfortable to sit on, but nothing to really get excited about. During the course of eight years, I became a member of several different churches and denominations. I started out in a Pentecostal church, moved to an independent fellowship, then ended up in a Baptist church, and visited a lot of others along the way. All the people seemed very friendly and loving, and there was always a nice, comfortable atmosphere. I even went to Bible college in Scotland for a few years and managed to acquire some theological qualifications. I ended up with a full time job at a college working with their computer systems. I didn't really care much for theology. I just wanted to find a body of believers who truly loved God enough to obey his word. What I actually found were Christians whose idea of love was obviously designed to be manageable and comfortable, to be acceptable and appealing to anyone and everyone. It didn't smell of Christ. It was bland and odorless, just like me. So,

Searching Churches For Real Love

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despite being totally unsatisfied, I fit right in like a good piece of furniture. At church, I usually became quickly involved in worship leading, in youth Bible studies, and later in adult Bible studies. Oh, I would often challenge the pastor or leadership about issues within the fellowship that I saw as being contrary to the Bible, but I was reasonable enough about it to be easily ignored. Of course, even a non Christian can read the Bible and point out areas where the scriptures and the church don't match up, but I considered myself quite a fundamentalist, and followed all the discernment ministries in standing firm against all the error in the church. During this time I met many people who seemed to have love and passion. Yet it wasn't the love of God or the power of the Holy Spirit, and I even encountered some people who were rude and offensive, but it wasn't the offense of the cross. I had yet to meet any Christians who had that missing something, the fragrance of Jesus Christ.

Meeting Tim And Sensing Change

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Then I heard that a pastor from America was flying over to Scotland to meet with one of my friends. I didn't really know anything about this pastor. I had, however, listened to two of his sermon tapes, and found them to be very biblical and very challenging. So, as I was trying to get out more at the time, I thought it would be worth going around to meet him. That's when I first met Tim. There was obviously something very different about them. It's pointless trying to explain or describe what it was, other than to say that they were far from odorless. They had a unique fragrance. They smelled of holiness, of humility, of a crucified life, and above all the love of God.

Leaving Comfort As Rumors Rise

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Within a month of discovering this fragrance and starting to fellowship with others at Sound Doctrine Church from halfway around the world, it became clear that I would have to leave my local church and my job at the Bible College. People around me started to smell death, and didn't want to be associated with it. I and Sound Doctrine Church became the subject of all kinds of nasty rumors and gossip, as people tried to justify themselves rather than seeking out the truth. Phrases like bad exegesis, judgmental, bad hermeneutics, and cultic were used often. Some people were even petty enough to always refer to sound doctrine as a group because they refused to acknowledge it as a real church. People were apparently concerned about my involvement with these people, but they preferred to be concerned from a distance, where things looked blurred enough to be mistaken for whatever their sin and fear conjured up. Such doubts and accusations seemed utterly ridiculous to me, and I have to admit to being very surprised and disappointed at the reaction of many people I had thought of as brothers and sisters.

Realizing I Was Not Converted

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However, while most others were busy getting a bad feeling about sound doctrine, I was rejoicing and struggling with finding a fellowship that not only preached the truth from the Word of God, but actually lived it out by the power of the Holy Spirit. The struggle came because I had to begin allowing God to crucify my flesh. For a start I had to humble myself as God revealed the reason I was odorless and didn't smell like Christ. It was because I had never really been a Christian. This came as quite a shock to me in my self righteousness and self confidence, but it was blatantly obvious as soon as I allowed the light of God to illuminate my life. Rather than cause me to turn hostile and defensive, though, by the grace of God it led me to an even greater desire to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

A Risky Trip Toward Fellowship

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Despite the fact that I hate traveling and had never been out of the UK before, I felt God was calling me very clearly to fly over to America and visit the church. So I decided to take the step of faith, and almost literally leaving everything, I went. Almost as soon as I arrived, I knew that I didn't want to leave. The love of God was evident in the fellowship right from the start. The smell of it was something very different from anything I had experienced before, not just in what was spoken and taught, certainly not in following any legalistic rules, but in a real and active obedience to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a love that simply smells of Jesus Christ, not a dead Jesus on the pages of a book, not a man made Jesus packed neatly into a box, not a comfortable, controllable, entertaining Jesus, who just smiles and nods at our sin, but a living Jesus who calls us to lose our very lives for him, that he might live in us. Since I have been part of Sound Doctrine Church, I have gone through many hard struggles as the cross has come to bear on my life, and many times I have wept and wrestled with God, and with my sin as He seeks to crucify my flesh. I trust that I will do so many more times in the future. But more than that, I have wept tears of joy of what God, in his grace, has allowed me to be

A Prayer For Life Giving Love

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part of. I can only pray that by reading this book God will be able to give you a small sample of the fragrance that comes from his incomparable love, as it is worked out in the fellowship of his people. I pray that it will smell like life to you. For that is what I can testify, it truly is.