Does the name Marty Sampson mean anything to you? If your like me, you never heard of him until last week. However, if you attend church, chances are you’ve heard his music. Sampson has been a singer-songwriter and musician for Hillsong United since the group began in 1998. He has written and performed lots of songs. Earlier this month in an Instagram post, Sampson said he was, “ loosing his faith and was ok with it” . Later, after pressure from his audience and colleagues to clarify, Sampson said he wasn’t renouncing Christianity but described his faith as on “shaky ground”.
Sampson isn’t by himself. Joshua Harris, the former pastor of Covenant Life Church, a mega church located in Maryland, and the founding church of Sovereign Grace Ministries, “walked away from the faith” following his divorce. Grace Family Fellowship’s pastor, Dave Gass, renounced and condemned the Christian faith after 40 years in the ministry. If you’d like to know more, just look them up on the net.
These kind of stories break my heart for all those who have been effected by the apparent “falling away” of church goers and teachers. Christians will grieve their absences and question the outcome of having followed their teaching. The collateral damage is potentially crushing to relationships. Marriages and friendships may or may not endure, but the comfortable atmosphere will have eroded. The adhesion will have lost some of it’s grip. Trust will now teeter on mortality where forever had once tied an eternal bond. While there are unlimited scenarios surrounding the circumstances of the individual quandaries people find themselves in, nearly all of these kinds of disaffection for God have similarities. If you investigate the stories you’ll find these common threads:
A loss of faith in humanity. The realization that mankind is a hopeless case bent on destroying itself. It means coming to the understanding, in the name of survival or self preservation, humans have a tendency to become savage beasts. Knowing
sometimes the best people, the people you know and love the most, will hurt you deeply. So, to them a perfect God could never be real. Ironically, it is this truth that leads many to search for a God, who can fix this, in the first place.
A revelation from Scripture. The understanding that the God of scripture is uncontrollable. He isn’t a galactic cuddly version of Aladdin’s genie. When people discover He has done some things they don’t like, they judge Him as evil. Deciding He cannot be Holy, by their standard, they choose to believe at the very least He shouldn’t exist.
A loss of faith in themselves. Many times, those who walk away are guilty of some moral failure that has come to light. Since God allowed their sin to come to become public, something His Word promises, they conclude a loving God would never allow them to fall. So, He must not be there for them, nor could He be for anyone else, since they are the best.
A faith in science: When people becomes convinced collectively mankind has obtained enough intellectual knowledge to dismiss the spiritual elements of life and conscience, he will arrogantly determine there is no God. Then he can do as he pleases in the name of advancement. Science, can offer nothing but a satirical faux-hope to mankind. It celebrates individuality, leaves man to law, but gives them no moral code. Science has given the world wonderful advancements in medicine, agriculture, and communications. It also gave us mustard gas, agent orange, and nuclear weapons. While science, as wonderful and benevolent as can be, cannot produce life, it has mastered producing death.
Christians don’t have a faith in humanity either. We believe what we do in this life has eternal consequences. We believe the God of the Bible is all powerful and cannot be controlled nor are there any reasons He should be. We have lost all faith in ourselves, so Jesus now controls us. We believe in scientific facts, but realize they do not disprove God’s existence. We don’t stand on “shaky ground” we stand on the rock of our salvation. We stand on a solid foundation of hope in someone stronger and more intelligent than ourselves. Someone who created individuality, and a morality to temper the laws. We stand on Him who causes science to work and creates life. We believe Him when he said,”...My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness..." (2 Corinthians 12:9).
1 John 2:19 says They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
These words are a reminder that not everyone who calls Jesus Lord actually knows Him. (See Matt 7)
It’s heartbreaking when dynamic influencers walk away from the faith. The great work Jesus did for us makes walking away inconceivable if it were even possible. Based on what the Bible says here and various other places, many of us believe they never had a faith to walk away from. Still, some of the faith will interpret this as a change of mind and heart in a once upon a time believer. A problem easily remedied by another decision. Others will say they can never return. Here questioning becomes it's designed purpose, a distraction from the evil one. Debating rather than serving is the great sin of our time. The farther away you are from a tragedy the easier the words flow. The closer you are to a tragedy the easier tears flow. From compassionate concerns to angry condemnation, people will respond any and everywhere in between. Meanwhile there's still the mission God called us to. Making disciples.We have not been called to figure out all the mysteries of the universe. We have not been called to a speculation of individuals’ futuristic relationship status with the Almighty. We’ve been called to tell the story of Jesus.
Humanity’s only Hope is Jesus. My only Hope is Jesus. Your only Hope is Jesus. Run to Jesus for Hope. Run to Jesus for Life. Run to Jesus and Live.