"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
Matthew 16
On social media, I follow several large worship movements like Bethel Music, Hillsong, Elevation Worship, to name a few. I was inspired and encouraged at two separate events I was able to witness from afar through the gift of technology.
The first was a video that Hillsong posted on the night of their latest album release. Brooke Ligertwood (Fraser) was giving a shout out to Bethel music for sending a dozen boxes of cupcakes for the team to have backstage. Brooke thanked the worship leaders at Bethel for the support and commented on the incredible unity in the body of Christ.
The second was a video of Phil Wickham. He was talking about his newest song that just blew up worldwide called “Living Hope”. He publicly acknowledged that he co-wrote the song with Brian Johnson from Bethel Music.
The reason why these videos struck me and encouraged me is because these groups represent a diversity of expressions of Christianity literally around the globe. If you placed three theologians in a room, one from each of these expressions, there would likely be much that could divide them.
Something that I’ve been wrestling with lately is this idea that when it comes to following Jesus, belief is fluid, and belief is different than faith—although they can often occur at the same time. A professor of mine explained it like this: Belief is assuming that this chair will support my weight, but faith is the act of actually sitting on it. We see throughout the gospels that the disciples gave up everything to follow Jesus even thought they didn’t fully understand who he was. Their faith came before their belief.
The reason this passage seems to be at the forefront of my thoughts is that I have a good friend who has made a life decision that, in my mind, contradicts what I know to be true of Christian values. But I know that she deeply loves Jesus. I haven’t been able to arrive at a place where I feel I can support the choice of my friend, but I have always been in a place where I can support his relationship to Jesus. However, I would be lying if I said it didn’t cause sadness in my heart.
This situation has raised so many questions in me and also shown me where my trust in Jesus is lacking.
Some Christians believe that women and men need to serve different roles in marriages and in leadership. In the complementation view of scripture, women are to submit to male authority both in church governance and in marriage relationships, equal value but separate roles. In the egalitarian view, Christians believe that women are to be held in equal standards of leadership alongside men both in church governance and in marriage.
Some Christians believe that violence of any kind is plainly prohibited by the teachings of the new testament; that any form of killing, even that of self defense, is murder. We call this Christian-Pacifism. Other Christians believe that although violence should be avoided when possible, sometimes it becomes a necessary evil in a fallen world. These Christians uphold a view called “Just War”.
Some Christians believe that divorce is given specific allowance under the teaching of Jesus for reasons of infidelity. Others hold that all divorce is sin, and yet still others believe that more clauses for divorce are founded in biblical truth.
Some Christians believe that consuming alcohol at any time for any reason is sin, while others believe that only drunkenness is the sin—not solely the consumption of alcohol.
We could take the rest of the blog to talk about the variety of beliefs that happen within Christianity. The point is, these issues are not simply black and white. What I think is incredible about the body of Christ is its ability to be united in Jesus through the Holy Spirit, even in the midst of such apparent disagreement over important issues.
Worship is truly the thing that unites the diversity of Christians around the world. When a person acknowledges that Jesus Is Lord, it binds them in the family of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.
Belief is important, but is always working itself out amongst the body of Christ. Faith in Jesus, however, is necessary. What is important is that we unite in faith and trust Jesus to make all things new, to set the world to rights.
I need to trust that if my friend is truly following Jesus, that God will have his way with him. I also need to have the humility to believe that the same is true about me.
When we sing together in a church setting, remember that we are joining in with the passion of Christians all over the globe with a diversity of unique cultural understandings of what it means to follow Jesus.
What is important at that moment is not what makes us different but rather what unites us: love and devotion to Jesus.
Thanks for reading,
Lane
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