Fri Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

The first core value of our church is, always has been, and always will be - Biblical Authority. There is a simple reason for this that will make perfect sense to you. If there is a God (and we believe there is) and if that God has sovereign authority over the entire universe (and we believe that He does) and if God has revealed himself and His will through the book that we call “The Bible” (and we believe that He has) then by default the highest authority we could ever appeal to for who we are supposed to be, what we are supposed to do, and why we are supposed to do it, must be the Bible.

Immediately, that calls for pushback in the society in which we live, because Americans think that questioning authority is their inalienable constitutional right. Being honest, even though we are all under authority, most of the time we don’t like it. We don’t like anybody telling us what to do. We don’t like submitting to anybody. The truth is there is a lot of libertarian in all of us - live and let live. I live my live my way and you live your life your way. I don’t tell you what to do and you don’t tell me what to do.

You see this in the church all the time. Most people who come to church today do not see it as a place where you get under spiritual authority and where you are willing to have spiritual accountability. Most people see the church as a store where you shop as a customer. As long as you like it and it services your needs you come back. The first time your feathers are ruffled or some place down the road offers a cooler experience, you move your business over there. You actually have churches today who advertise the fact that they are not going to say anything that might offend anyone. They are not going to upset the customers, because the customer is king and you’ve got to please the customer.

I have observed something very interesting about people’s attitude toward authority. Have you noticed that we don’t seem to mind authority when we are the ones that have it? Practically all of us believe in the Golden Rule. We want to have the gold and we want to make the rules!

Let me let you in on a little dirty secret about authority. Everybody is under authority and you really don’t have a choice as to whether or not you will be under authority. For example, everyone is under the authority of gravity. If you don’t believe it, just go to the nearest mountain, climb to the top, go to the edge, shake your fist in the face of the gravity and say, “I’m no longer under your authority” and jump. The issue is not whether or not you are under authority. The issue is “What authority are you going to be under? Who is going to call the shots in your life?”