Your Best Life Ever Backfires
Victoria Osteen, the wife of pastor and best selling author, Joel Osteen, was “asked to leave a plane on Tuesday after she failed to comply with a flight attendant’s instructions…” Joel Osteen is the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, the country’s largest megachurch with 30,000 members. Victoria and her family were reportedly on their way to Colorado for a ski vacation.
At first I thought that Lakewood was one of the megachurches that was canceling Christmas Day services. “God has a sense of humor,” I thought to myself. Christmas Day is about family time and getting away from it all, right? However, I was wrong because I then remembered someone who commented on Transformatum saying that Lakewood was only scaling back. Sure enough the church calendar confirms it, although it looks like the Osteens will not be there.
Something about the situation still bothered me. I began searching Technorati for other bloggers’ thoughts. Derek Brown, on For Your Good, speculates that the incident may have been provoked by one of the philosophies in Osteen’s book–Your Best Life Now–in which a strong emphasis is placed on “trivial examples of God’s favor to the faithful.” Like Brown, I pray that this incident becomes a springboard for a “dialog about potentially harmful theology” and a quest for Biblical truth. The alternative is that the Church’s image will continue to tarnish in the eyes of the world.
Asking me to not change my site title is like telling the sun not to shine or the earth to cease in its orbit… alright that may be a little dramatic, but I tend to change my title when my moods change, which is quite frequently. Fickle woman, I know. but for your sake I will try to leave this one for awhile. I was so upset when I heard about that pastor’s wife making such a scene. no wonder christians have such a bad name. but we are human…. it seems that the media is so hungry to report on anything that makes christians look bad. It makes me sad because I know it must hurt the heart of Christ that we represent him to the world so badly most of the time…
True, true…a lot of the time even those of us with solid grasp of reformed doctrine represent Christ poorly…and the world is watching. The part about this that concerns me is that Osteen is SO influencial. Not only do I have an issue with the prosperity gospel, but he doesn’t even like to talk about sin. He was on Larry King Live recently had the following to say (context was same-sex marriage):
If we can’t have an open conversation with people about their own sin–and I don’t mean in a guilt trip kind of way–then how can you really explain the work of Christ and what He did for us on the cross? The fact of the matter is that sin does condemn but Christ saves. Anywhere short of that and it starts becoming a self-help program.
so what do you think about calling christians sinners? I had a minor disagreement with another believer recently- she said that we are not sinners, we are saints. I said, well, I sin every day, so that makes me a sinner (since that is my action)… obviously I claim the salvation through Christ, but this does not mean my sin is not sin and that in the end I am a sinner? she seemed quite offended- she said there was a verse in the Bible that says once we are saved we are no longer sinners. Am I wrong to think I am still a sinner? do you know of this verse?
I am guessing that your friend is probably taking Romans 6:6ff out of context, but she could be referencing another text.
Paul is emphasizing our state of grace in Christ and freedom from the penalty of the law. Your friends interpretation that we are no longer sinners would go against the rest of Paul’s teaching and the entire New Testament. It would also miss the thrust of the question posed in the first verse of chapter six where Paul asks, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may about?”
I would spend the time to give you all the scriptural references to what I’m about to write, but I’m also packing and trying to get out of town. Romans would be a good place to start (esp. chapter seven). I am guessing that you want to start slowly anyway, rather than beat your friend over the head with the Westminster Confession. However, were I in a discussion with someone more grounded I might say…
We are all sinners saved by grace. A sinner is one who sins. You are right to say that you and I sin every day, no matter how sanctified we may be (think jealousy, wrath, pride, etc.). As long as we are in our pre-glorified state we will continue to struggle with sin.
When we are justified by Christ we are not made righteous ourselves, but rather Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. Christ death on the cross was a substitutionary atonement, in which our sins were imputed to Him on the cross. He took the punishment for our sins (past, present and future). Our sainthood is not conditioned on our perfection, but on the imputed righteousness of Christ (because he lived a perfect life). There is a legal transaction taking place (in fact the word “justification” is a legal term that simply means we are declared righteous by God).
Since this justification is not contingent upon our own holiness or perfection, and our personal sanctification will always be found lacking in one respect or the other, then the Christian can be considered to be both righteous and a sinner at the same time. Again, this is because our righteousness is not inherent. Our justification is a legal pronouncement of God’s approval. It brings us into a right relationship with Him, but we remain sinners. However, by virtue of our justification in the sight of God, we are also considered saints (i.e., those whom he has set apart). There is a tension between what God considers us to be and where we actually are in terms of our personal sanctification, and so believers are both sinners and saints simultaneously.
kind of like the trinity- how we can be sinners and saints at the same time is not a concept our finite minds (at least mine!) can grasp! Thanks for the answer!