Aligned Allegiance
PH Bible Teaching
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Homefront Family Services, here is this week’s Bible teaching clip, “Aligned Allegiance.” This teaching confronts the tension between claiming closeness with God and refusing to live under His authority. Drawing from Amos and applied to marriage and everyday discipleship, it exposes the danger of cultural Christianity and competing loyalties. True fellowship with God - and true unity with one another - can only exist where there is genuine alignment with His ways. Check out the clip below, or view the full message here!
Audio version only…
Transcript…
(Expositing on Amos 3:3)
Israel has claimed closeness with God. They have claimed to be God’s people: “Oh, this … We’re God’s people and he’s blessed us and all of that.” And yet they have rejected his authority.
So they’re claiming to belong to God, but they are rejecting his authority and worshiping idols instead. And so Amos is going to them, and he is declaring and exposing this contradiction. And this is what he’s saying: Don’t claim fellowship with one whose path you refuse to follow.
This is a really important thing for us to understand in our relationships. Do not claim fellowship with one whose path you refuse to follow. And the “one” I’m talking about is God.
In premarital counseling, one of the most bizarre things in the world—it’s sad to me—is when every couple comes in, Yes, we want you to do the service. We want it to be a Christian service. We want God to bless this marriage. We want God to be the heart of our relationship. Okay.
And then we’re gonna walk out the door and continue to have premarital sex. We’re gonna walk out the door and continue to live together. We’re gonna do all the things that God says not to do. We’re not going to actually follow his path, but we do want fellowship with him. We want to claim that he’s at the heart of our marriage, and we want to say our Christian vows and in front of a church.
This is what Amos is saying, Stop that! Stop claiming fellowship with one that you don’t want to follow. If you’re not following his ways, then quit claiming that you are.
This is not saying, Well, walking together is going to take a lot of work. You’re going to have to compromise. That’s not what Amos is saying. Walking together requires agreement with God’s ways.
Show me a couple who is agreeing to follow God’s guidelines, and I’ll show you a couple that is growing closer and closer together and towards oneness.
God’s way is to die to self every day. Die to self. Not pursue selfish interests. Not to pursue your dreams and your passions. They died in the Baptistry. You are living your life to serve and to glorify God. Both of you; die to those passions daily.
Jesus actually says, “Every day, take up an instrument of death and crucify your desires and your passions.” This sounds so awful to people that live in America that believe, This is all about me.
That’s what I’m saying. There is so much cultural Christianity. I think if people actually knew what Jesus was saying …
That’s why in Scripture, every time there’s these huge crowds that follow him, Jesus turns around and it’s almost him saying, Something’s not computing with you. You aren’t hearing what I’m saying, because if you did, you all wouldn’t be here.
Die to yourself every day. Crucify the old self every day. Slay its passions, slay its desires, and make them a relic of the past. Living for yourself and your own dreams and aspirations, that’s a thing of the past now. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Now you bring that meaning into marriage, and the application is penetrating. It’s unbelievable. This isn’t just husband and wife cooperating together. This is two people aligning themselves under God’s authority. That’s what this is. This is the idea of oneness.
You answer me this question—this is rhetorical; don’t say it out loud, please—can a marriage be healthy if two people, man and wife, are walking towards fundamentally different visions of truth?
This is what she believes truth is (extends left hand outward); this is what he believes truth is (extends right hand outward in the opposite direction), and in their marriage, they’re walking in that direction. Is that going to be a healthy marriage?
Contentment. This is what she believes will bring ultimate contentment: happy family, healthy family. This (extends opposing hands in opposite directions again) is what he believes will bring ultimate contentment: financial success and stability. And the two of them are walking in that direction. Is that going to be a happy marriage if they have two different visions of what those things are?
How about joy? This is what she believes will bring us joy. This is what he believes will bring this relationship joy. Will that be a healthy marriage?
This is what our marriage is supposed to be about, this is what we’re aiming towards. That’s what she thinks. This is what I think our marriage is aiming towards and what it should be. Is that going to be a healthy marriage?
That’s what I’m getting at. Go back to that little diagram that I had before of the husband and the wife. And now, instead of just watching them wander all over the place, you can put into this vision what’s happening: He’s pursuing the idea of joy in his life, and he’s pursuing the idea of contentment in his life. And she’s doing the same thing, and those things are not matching up. This is where she wants to go with life, and this is where he wants to go with life. And they’re two different places, and they’re going to end up in two different places.
And maybe they can cooperate and hold together some sort of roommate partnership, but it’s not going to be the healthy and the happy and the blessed marriage that God has called it to be, the witness to the world.
This isn’t just an issue of poor technique. You don’t need to sit there and come up with better strategies on how to do things. No, the problem here is competing loyalties. That’s why I’m saying all of these things.
Even if those two people agree to compromise on shared duties and responsibilities, it is ultimately futile as long as we are driven by selfish passions. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who attempt to build it.