American Dream In A Choir Robe

What guides your life?

If I looked at your schedule, your finances, your conversations, your thoughts, your motivations, and your habits, what would they point to?

For far too many in the West, they certainly wouldn’t point to Jesus.

For far too often in my life, they don’t point to Him.

I 100% believe that following Jesus in the West has been condensed down to The American Dream in a choir robe. Get the big house, the lake house, the boat, the spouse, the two kids, the dog, the promotion, the popularity, the success. Get it all. Just make sure you pray before meals and go to church on the weekends if you’re not busy.

Y’all. That ain’t the call of the gospel.

But for far too much of my life, that has been the dream. I want all that this world has to offer.

Right now I’m hanging out at the beach in North Carolina, on a family reunion trip that we take every few years. When I was little, we came to this exact same beach. I remember standing out in the waves as a teenager, thinking about what my life would be like. I wanted to taste and see that America was good. I wanted to work in sports information and make a name for myself. I legit thought I would be working at ESPN as a statistician.

Fast-forward half of my lifetime and I’m looking out at the waves praising God that He didn’t give me what I wanted.

This world is insidious.

We can 100% enjoy beach trips and all the other pleasures of this world. They’re from God. They’re good when received with thanksgiving.

But all too often, I get hooked.

Here’s what I mean.

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul is talking about the dangers of sexual immorality. In verse 12 he makes a statement that I believe applies to matters far broader than sexual activity.

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. – 1 Corinthians 6:12

As Christians, we have freedom. There are a thousand worldly things that aren’t mentioned in Scripture. And even those that are come down to belief not behavior.

When it comes to my choices concerning things of this world, this verse gives the perfect thought process. Is engaging in a certain activity, going on a specific trip, establishing a certain rhythm, or implementing a certain hobby helpful for my walk with Christ?

I’d rather miss out on a million worldly things if those worldly things dim my light for Christ or lessen my commitment to Him.

I used to think that those who said ‘no’ to certain worldly forms of entertainment or activities were crotchety old legalists. And maybe some were. But now I see that maybe they had it right.

Here’s the definition of dominate:

have a commanding influence on; exercise control over.

Oh geez.

Does that not sound like the church in the West? We have become controlled by the things of this world. We have bowed down to a different lord.

So how do we know if we’ve been dominated by worldly things?

Where does your money go to first?

What do you first think about when you wake up?

What is your weekly schedule operating around?

What do you talk about the most?

The answers to these questions show us what we’re being dominated by and controlled by. If the answer isn’t “God’s people, the Kingdom of God, making disciples, and the good news of the gospel” respectively, then I’ve bowed down to an idol. I’ve taken a good thing and made it a god thing in my life.

Can I confess my false gods?

Over the last few years, I’ve had three things that have taken the role of lord in my life, three things that while not unlawful became the core of who I am. And boy they’re embarrassing.

The first one was a stupid little white ball with dimples. Back in 2020, I played AT LEAST once a week. Instead of devoting time to God in prayer or study, or spending time with my wife, I would go hit a ball over and over again for four or five hours. It became what I wanted to talk about, post about, research, and receive gifts regarding. It dominated me and it didn’t help me in my walk with Jesus.

After much conviction, I put it back in its proper place. I still play from time to time, but it no longer dominates me.

The second one was a dual threat of TikTok and YouTube. From 2019-2021 off and on I would become overpowered by the need to watch idiotic videos at every free moment I had. It was bad. And boy it’s embarrassing. But I would get home from a tiring day of work and lay on the couch or in bed looking and laughing. Now, humor is a gift from God. Laughter and levity are gifts from God. But I was neglecting time with God in prayer and word because I ‘didn’t have enough time’. All while ScreenTime was saying I spent 4 hours on my phone daily.

After much, much, much conviction, I deleted TikTok and have slowly tried to waste less time on YouTube.

The last thing that dominated me was work. For the last several years work had become something that was a burden instead of something that was a joy. While circumstances may have contributed to that burden, I mostly did that to myself. My time at home was consumed by my responsibilities at work.

In two days (depending on how the vote goes of course) I’ll be starting a new chapter in ministry. My prayer is that it will take its proper place in my heart and life. It is not what my life is about.

My life should be about Jesus.

Brother or sister in Christ, I can’t tell you what you’ve become dominated by.

What I can tell you is that removing good and morally neutral things from your life isn’t legalist. It’s life-giving.

Every single week I want to think about and live in response to what will make the most like Jesus, what will make me pursue Him the hardest.

Let’s be honest, the pleasures of this world will not compare to the glories of the Kingdom.

So I’m more than willing to miss out on some here.

Let’s not be dominated by anything.

The American Dream is incomplete.

Let’s do only that which is helpful for our walk with Jesus.

Let’s do it together.

In His Name,

Nate Roach

Clap Back Christians

The fruit of the Spirit is wit, argumentation, debate, narcissism, opinions, clap backs. Against such things there is no law. 

When I survey my heart, our churches, and fellow believers on social media, these things seem to be the core of the Christian way of life.

Long gone are the ways of Jesus that are outlined in Galatians 5, which I woefully misquoted just a moment ago. Instead of being loving, patient, and kind, we bicker incessantly over the most minuscule things. Instead of being self-controlled, we have to get our opinion out about everything at every moment. Man alive, I fight this in my heart (never perfectly) every day. I see something in the news, or on social media, and I just have to have a good response to it.

What has become of our witness? Is our rudeness, flippancy, and sarcasm really drawing people to Jesus (not to mention drawing them to come to a different conclusion in regard to any debate we are facilitating)?

Now, I am not saying that being vocal on Facebook or Instagram or whatever form of social media you’re on in regard to faith or even other things is detrimental to the Kingdom of God.

But the way we go about sharing these things is so crucially important.

If you scoured my social media, you’d see (I think) very little regarding hot button issues. Last Summer I got into a fit of anger and posted a vehement, unfair take on gun control. Since then, I’ve felt led by God to keep my opinions to myself, to private discussions, to gentle conversations. You’ll never see me posting about politics. Come talk to me about it, sure. But you’re not going to get a vocal, public, social media take on these things.

I honestly am proud of myself, that by God’s grace I haven’t said a word about Covid-19 policies. I’ve just said that life sucks sometimes and we can cling to Jesus.

For whatever reason, we prize the well-argued posts. I’ve seen countless Christans (including me) say things on social media that they would never say to someone’s face.

Souls are not won through social media arguments.

Souls are won by living in such a way that illuminates the kindness, gentleness, love, and patience of Jesus. Souls are won by being self-controlled. Not every debate is worth getting into. Not very conversation needs to get a response from us.

I fall into the habit of thinking that I need to vocalize my voice into every topic, every scenario, every hot button issue.

I think, “If I don’t, who will?”

Maybe, just maybe, we can let things slide.

Now, I’m on social media often. My side ministry of Roach Ramblings is social-media driven. I’m on it. But social media is ultimately not the place for the transformation of lives through argumentation.

I love the take that Jesus engaged the false teachings of the 1st century world during His life and ministry. I love that take because it misses the mark (in my opinion, which is often in fact wrong). The mission of Jesus (as shown to us in the Gospel accounts) was not to debate the religious leaders of the day or to correct heresy. Now, these arguments happened as people were stupid enough to engage God Himself in debate. But Jesus did not seek them out in a malicious, self-absorbed way. The God of the universe in human flesh did not feel the need to correct every errant belief, every errant political view (He in fact doesn’t seem to care much at all about this besides teaching submission and humility). He did not go about the countryside engaging false teachings or interpretations of the Torah.

He went about preaching the Kingdom of God. He went about healing the sick. He went about performing miracles. He wasn’t sarcastic. He wasn’t clapping back at others.

I see in us the tendency to disrespect our elders who we disagree with. Gone are the days of charitable disagreement. Rather we must now be quick to degrade, whether intentionally or unintentionally those who we disagree with.

Church, enough is enough.

Brother or sister in Christ, enough is enough.

May we live with a profound kindness. A profound gentleness. A profound self-control. May our church’s false gods of sarcasm, wit, and argumentation come down. May we again uplift the qualities of the Spirit of God in our lives and in our words, digital or otherwise.

Let me close with the real fruit of the Spirit as written down in Galatians 5.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. – Galatians 5:22-23

In His Name,

Nate Roach

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The Righteousness Of Jesus

(Tonight, we add Matt Welborn (one of my closest friends from OBU) into the mix of writers. Our blog has almost 250 followers and I’m excited to see it continue to grow with your help!)

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about sin and righteousness. The more I read about God’s righteousness, the more I realize the depth of my own sin.

I was reading in Mark 7 recently, and I came across the passage in which Jesus and His disciples go about eating without washing their hands. The Pharisees were upset. Jesus wasn’t following the rules! How can someone be righteous if they don’t obey their elders? At first glance, maybe Jesus is in a bind here.

Yet Jesus responds to the upset Pharisees:

And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ – Mark 7:6-7

Their hearts were far from God, thus their worship was in vain.

The Pharisees were supposed to be the most righteous of all of God’s people. If I was sitting around, observing this conversation nearly two-thousand years ago, I’d be worried. The people I saw as most righteous were the same people Jesus was saying were far away from God.

I don’t want to be far away from God. At the same time, I’m not very righteous. I’m terribly unrighteous. Jesus spits a list of sins shortly thereafter:

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” – Mark 7:20-23

Yikes. I’ve definitely had evil thoughts. Sexual immorality — yeah. Theft? Well, I envy often. And I’ve stolen for sure. Murder? I’ve hated another person. Jesus says that counts. Adultery? I’ve lusted after another person. Jesus says that counts too.

I don’t really want to keep going in this list. It’s hard to look inside and see how evil my heart is and has been.

The beautiful thing, though, is Jesus knows already. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I want that. I want a clean heart. I want a right spirit.

When Jesus came to earth and lived among us, He knew our unrighteousness. He knows it more deeply and intimately than we probably will ever know. We are born into sin, far away from God. But God came to us.

Jesus came to us when we were far away.

By dying on the cross and raising from the grave, Jesus conquered sin and death and all unrighteousness. He came to exchange our hearts of stone for hearts of flesh. He desires for each and every one of us to be alive in Him. To be actually, fully, completely human. Jesus wants us to walk with Him in the same way Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. Jesus invites us into relationship — even in our state of unrighteousness.

Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

In our state of unrighteousness, Jesus died for us. He defeated death and is now offering the free gift of righteousness to all who believe. What does that righteousness look like? Phillipians 4:8 tells us. This is what we get to think about and be about:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. – Philippians 4:8-9

The God of peace will be with us. Jesus gives us the Spirit of God to practice the very things above. This is a list I’d much rather embody.

Whatever is true — seeking the truth in all things. Whatever is honorable — thinking about the words that lift people up and serve the Kingdom of God. Whatever is just — the Bible is pretty clear about God’s desire for justice (and our place as seekers of justice). Whatever is pure — Jesus says during the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” To see God!

The list continues. Whatever is lovely — is it not pleasant to see beauty? The loveliness of the Grand Canyon, the wonder of wildflowers, the patience of your parents, the face of God. Whatever is commendable — the great acts of service: loving God, loving others, and laying aside your selfishness to serve another person. Anything excellent and worthy of praise — anything!

This is a much better list of things to think about and be about. I pray that the Spirit of God would reveal the depth of your sin, the great need you have for a Savior, and the wonderful reality of your new life in Christ. Think about the loveliness of Jesus Christ. Think about these things. Practice these things. And the God of peace will be with you.

The peace of Christ be with you,

Matt Welborn