Stumbling Blocks

“What are we celebrating?”

This one question has been recurring from my pulpit for quite some time now. The context typically includes an admixture of invitation, partiality, oversight, and misguided emotions. The example most often mentioned concerns family (I’m speaking of blood relatives, particularly immediate family members). Family represents a natural petri dish for conflict. For example, how many of us can actually say that we’ve never fought with members of our family? Furthermore, aren’t our most monumental fights usually with members of our own household? Is it fair to say the following is true?

Longevity of affection is often the greatest predictor of pain during conflict - the longer we’ve loved someone (e.g., a member of our family), the deeper the wounds that result.

I think, generally speaking, the above is true. And yet, knowing this, God has divinely chosen every one of our families for us! This implies that He knew our faith would be tested often and severely within the confines of natural life. Given the fact that each member of a household possesses a unique personality (a unique human flesh, too), it’s pertinent to believe conflict is inevitable. This reality is magnified when others in our family remain unsaved. The main reason is that an unregenerate person remains hostile towards God, unable to please Him, wholly unmotivated to do so.

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Let’s focus on the family dynamic for a moment, supposing that we have a family unit comprised of all unbelievers, save one - you. Suppose it’s your family, even if it differs from your actual one (let’s make this personal). Based on Holy Scripture, we know that the unbelieving members of our family are disinterested in the things God has placed as good and righteous on our hearts, as sanctified believers in Christ Jesus. We also know that Jesus warned His disciples about several points of contention with those still living in the flesh.

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.”
Remember the word that I said to you, “A slave is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
Allow me to summarize the above three passages for the sake of this blog. As a believer, you will be persecuted. Oh, and by the way, expect said persecution to be prevalent in your innermost circle of relatives, beginning with your immediate family. This may come as a shock to many Christians, but it is absolutely the truth. And don’t forget to include passive aggressiveness towards Christ also!

Partiality blinds us from the truth. Arguably the most rampant cases of partiality occur within the family. Even well-intentioned believers struggle with this. Nonetheless, it is true. Furthermore, our faith is called to the carpet each and every time a member of our family asks us to celebrate something ungodly with them. While it may cause extreme consternation in the soul, even gut-wrenching distress, we believers are called to stand up for Christ Jesus, for He is our principle reason for celebration. Anyone and/or anything that requires a slight of Christ ought to be rejected.

If you’re having a knee-jerk reaction to this, please allow me to ask you a simple question. Who are you more willing to offend: your family members or your Lord and Savior? At the end of the day, this remains the unavoidable question. Do you wish to celebrate the things of the world with those of the world, or do you wish to celebrate Christ? You cannot do both. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24a). Celebrating with someone implies friendship. “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). If the members of your family are relegated to fleshly/worldly thoughts, affections, and celebrations, you must stand firmly opposed. You must also remain open in terms of what you choose to adopt as good, knowing that, as a believer in Christ, His Bride, “you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:1-2).

I’ve heard some say, “But I don’t want to reject an invitation to celebrate if it is going to make someone stumble.” The Bible teaches us two aspects of stumbling - both are based on association with a household. In other words, whose household will we recognize as honorable (hint: Philippians 3:20)? First, Jesus Christ, the Head of the household of faith, is called a stumbling block, “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED” (Romans 9:33). Second, we are not to make members of this household stumble, or else, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42).

Whose household will you offend: your earthly one or the household of faith? From which do you desire acceptance? Is it possible that making an unbeliever stumble is a very good thing after all? Isn’t that exactly what Jesus did? What was His motivation? “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). What’s your motivation when you, in partiality to familial loved ones, choose to celebrate ungodliness? Is your failure to stand up for what is Christ-like an endorsement of said celebrations? What’s the message you’re sending unbelievers when you fail this way? What does it say about your faith, for many of them know what you supposedly stand for, right? What would Jesus have you do, for the sake of the Gospel? Are you searching for loopholes even now that you’ve been convicted? They don’t exist.

These are just some of the questions that we all need to think about the next time we are concerned about making unbelievers stumble. We must realize that stumbling is precisely what is supposed to happen! The human flesh despises the things of God (technically, it despises you even though it may not be verbalized due to social proprieties). No person has ever been saved that hasn’t first repented of their sinfulness. No human flesh has ever stood silently by as this part of conversion took place. How dare any of us, in our partiality, thwart this from happening; that is, to thwart the very will of God, “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

What’s a greater crime: to offend a family member in order that they might stumble over the Gospel or to watch them continue on their path towards Hell while you celebrate alongside them? I’d rather every member of my family hate me for a time and be saved than love me while on earth and spend eternity “in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12).

Woe is me! For I am
Like the fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers.
There is not a cluster of grapes to eat,
Or a first-ripe fig which I crave.

The godly person has perished from the land,
And there is no upright person among men.
All of them lie in wait for bloodshed;
Each of them hunts the other with a net.

Concerning evil, both hands do it well.
The prince asks, also the judge, for a bribe,
And a great man speaks the desire of his soul;
So they weave it together.

The best of them is like a briar,
The most upright like a thorn hedge.
The day when you post your watchmen,
Your punishment will come.
Then their confusion will occur.

Do not trust in a neighbor;
Do not have confidence in a friend.
From her who lies in your bosom
Guard your lips.

For son treats father contemptuously,
Daughter rises up against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD;
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.
Love in Christ,

Ed Collins