That question is likely above my pay grade. I don’t pretend to know what the deepest weakness is, but I do have some thoughts on one great weakness- we don’t believe God. We don’t believe God when He warns us with respect to His will, telling us what we must do, and what we must not do. Neither do we believe God when He tells us what we are in ourselves, nor when He tells us who we are in Christ. And, we don’t believe the beauty and the glory of all that He has given us and all that He has promised us. I recognize those weaknesses in the church because I recognize them in myself. That said, I know I come by it naturally. My first parents had the same problem.
What we do with all that God has told us is reduce it, make it small, make it reasonable. We believe we’re mildly sinful. We believe God’s law has some wisdom to give us. We believe our sins are forgiven. What we don’t believe is that we are wretched sinners, still in a titanic struggle with our old nature. What we don’t believe is that every command of God is a gift, an invitation to joy. What we don’t believe is that He is our Father, that He loves us infinitely and immutably, and that we will be with Him forever.
All of which works itself out in our worldliness, in our anemic worship, in our stunning lack of joy, in our jockeying for position with the world and bickering over standing among ourselves. It works itself out in our bad theology, in our bad behavior and in our bad psyches. It is fed by a deep lack of spiritual discipline and a hunger for “safe” preaching. It is driven by pride, the same pride that brought to pass Satan’s downfall.
What then shall we do? The ultimate answer to every, “What shall we do…” question is always the same- repent and believe the gospel. To repent is to believe God about who we are, and where we are. It is to turn to Him. To believe the gospel is to believe His promises, and to live in light of them. What we don’t need is yet another new program designed to help Christians repent and believe. What we need is the same old program designed to help Christians, and those outside the church, to repent and believe. That program is the faithful proclamation of the gospel, the faithful practice of the sacraments and the faithful exercise of church discipline. What we need for Christians to be better Christians, to become more like Jesus is for the church to be a better body, to become more fully the bride of Christ. And what we need for the church to be a better body is for Christians to be better Christians. There is no magic potion, no secret formula, no second blessing sitting on a shelf. There is Jesus, sitting on His throne.
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I believe the Church’s deepest weakness is leaders who have lost their first love, perhaps burned-out, not being thrilled by God or his word anymore and somewhat going through the motions, perhaps because they don’t know of any other way to make a living and they don’t know what to do. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Thank God that about 10 years ago he used John Piper and others who made it clear that God is calling us to deep Joy and relationship with him!
Amen brother.