The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 3: God's Family

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life- Part 3

A few weeks ago I began my chapter-by-chapter review of Rick Warren's popular book The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book). Rick Warren presents a theology of suffering in this book that caught my attention as a defender of the Christian worldview because of its applicability in addressing the problem of evil and suffering. Because the book has forty chapters, I decided to break up the review into multiple parts that coincide with the parts of Warren's book. For easy navigation of this review, here are the parts with links that will be updated as they publish:

• Part 1: Created For God's Purpose
• Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)
• Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)
• Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)
• Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)
• Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 3: You Were Formed For God's Family

Chapter 15: Formed For God's Family

The second purpose for which you were created is to be part of God's family. Warren explains that because God is triune, His loving relationship was complete prior to His creative act, so He did not need to create us. Rather He desired to create us and bring us into a loving relationship with Him. When we accept Christ's sacrifice for our sins, we become part of His family, sons and daughters of the Father. With this eternal status comes a five-fold inheritance: we enjoy a loving relationship with our Creator and Savior forever; we are completely transformed to be like Christ; we are delivered from the evil, pain, and suffering of this world; we will be rewarded in eternity for our work in this world and given new, more rewarding, vocations, and we get to share in Christ's glory forever.

When we see the evil, pain, and suffering that we must endure in this life, it is encouraging to remember that it will all lead to this inheritance. Our temporary endurance of suffering will culminate in a permanent replacement of joy. Being part of God's family is the greatest honor that we can receive. And we share this honor with others who have also accepted Christ's sacrifice. (For those who are interested in the evidence for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I highly recommend the books The Historical Jesus by Gary Habermas and Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace.) We were created for the eternal inheritance, and we were created for the Church, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Chapter 16: What Matters Most

But that eternal inheritance does not come without responsibility in this world. That responsibility, though, will become more natural as we are more conformed to the character of Christ and worship the Father more in spirit and in truth (the first purpose). We must remember, after all, that our lives are not about us; they are about God and His purposes for our lives.

Warren points out the obvious fact of everyone's life: it is finite, and we all have only so much time on this earth, so our time must be used responsibly. He goes on to explain that we must not spend our time on trivial pursuits of worldly achievement. Rather we must focus our time on love. Loving others is the most important use of our time. Particularly, Christians' love for each other. But why is love and why is this love what matters most? Warren explains that love within God's family has an indirect but powerful effect on our evangelism; its presence inside and visibility outside God's family draws unbelievers to Christ. John 13:35 states, "By this everyone will know you are my (Jesus') disciples, if you love one another." Thus the legacy of this love's effects lasts forever.

Warren then takes the time to remind the reader that "love" is worthless without action, and that action takes our time. Thus when we are faced with the decision to either spend our time building a loving relationship with someone (especially a fellow Christian) or pursuing money or power, we are morally obligated, as Christians- members of God's family, to choose to spend our time in relationship. Warren calls the reader to stop their delay of building loving relationships and adjust their priorities so that their finite time in this world will have an infinite effect.

As a side note, what Warren means by "love" should not be confused with the modern view of "tolerance" nor should it be confused with an ethical system based upon "love." Two recommended books on these issues, respectively, are "The Beauty of Intolerance" by Josh and Sean McDowell and "Christian Ethics by Norman Geisler."

Chapter 17: A Place to Belong

One of the best ways to build loving relationships with other Christians is to be committed to a local body of believers. The local church is a collection of Christians who do not merely meet together but are committed to each other just as much as they are committed to Christ. Belonging to a local church is not an option for a Christian, it is a command, and this command is given because of its necessity. Just as parts of a physical body cannot fulfill their purpose or even survive for long without being connected to their physical body, neither can a part of the spiritual body of Christ (individual Christians) fulfill their purpose or even survive for long as Christians without being connected to their spiritual body of believers.

Many Christians resist such a commitment due to many reasons, but most of those reasons boil down to being unwilling to love those who do not act or believe precisely the way they do. But this is not God's expectation when he commands us to be committed to one another. He commands us to love sinful people the same way that He does. We will never find a perfect church because it is comprised of sinful people who have accepted Christ's sacrifice for their sin, but who, while still on this earth, will sin until either they pass into eternity or Christ returns. Part of our commitment to one another is loving each other despite their sin and encouraging them to reject their sin. Such a commitment is not easy because it is a two-way street; those who are committed to us will stand alongside us and call out our sins. Rather than rejecting such a strong connection, we should embrace it and understand that it is vital in helping us to become more like Christ. A church that does not confront sin, or even encourages it in the name of "tolerance" (see The Beauty of Intolerance), is not functioning properly at all and is standing in blatant disobedience to God's command to love one another.

Chapter 18: Experiencing Life Together

Fellowship has taken on a more generalized and shallow meaning since the time of the early Church. When the Church first started, having "fellowship" meant that those involved were an extremely tightly-knit group. The individuals experience life together complete with its victories and failures, and joys and sufferings. In order to have true fellowship the members must be truly committed to one another. This means that honesty and vulnerability are necessary. We are called to "bear each other's burdens," but that cannot happen if we do not communicate our struggles or if we are not willing to support one another in their struggles.

Life brings intense struggle, some so intense that it causes Christians to doubt God's goodness, faithfulness, or even His existence. When we honestly communicate these struggles, those around us can carry us emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and practically. Warren encourages those who others confide in to have faith for the person who is struggling as they go through the struggle. As deep emotions brought by struggle are communicated, they are affirmed and experienced together...

Chapter 19: Cultivating Community

...but the "affirmation" of emotions that Warren describes is not an affirmation of sinful behavior. While someone may have strong emotions about continuing in a sin (or their emotions may be producing a spiritual blind-spot), and those emotions can be acknowledged; that acknowledgement cannot result in and is not to be understood as the approval of the sin. Honesty is key to cultivating community in the Church. Not just honesty from someone who feels like doing something sinful, but honesty from those who recognize the action or behavior as sinful. Honesty is not an excuse to be rude, unloving, or judging of a person's soul; it is a call to loving correction- an explanation that their choice to continue violates the objective moral law of God, and that God calls us to repent and to choose otherwise.

When we are honest about others' choices, we are being protectors and enablers of their relationship with Christ. When we see others' concern for our relationship with Christ, we see a common bond and a common purpose with eternal implications that binds us together in a trusting and loving community. But we must remember that honesty and cultivating this type of community is a multi-way street. While we may be honest about one person's behavior being sinful, we must be willing to accept others' honesty about our own sinful behaviors. And we must treat others in the middle of their struggles the same way we would like to be treated in the middle of our own struggles. Warren reminds the reader that cultivating community requires us to surrender our self-centered nature to focus on true fellowship with the Body of Christ. We must be patient with each other just as Christ was patient with us.

Chapter 20: Restoring Broken Fellowship

Warren points out that because Christ called for unity within the Church, when fellowship is broken it does great harm not only to the Body of Christ but to their witness. We are called to show love to one another, and the lost are watching how we treat one another, especially when we disagree to see how they will be treated when we disagree with them. Warren explains that no Christian is without sin and will offend a brother or sister. Some offenses are so devastating that they cause broken fellowship among them. These broken relationships must be repaired as quickly as possible through honesty, humility, confession, forgiveness, and love. The hurt feelings must be understood, responsibility must be accepted, mercy and forgiveness must be extended, and change (when sin is involved) must take place. This kind of reconciliation prepares the way for a resolution. We must remember that Christ called for unity, not uniformity, so Christians will have legitimate disagreements over non-essential issues that must be debated, but those debates should never result in broken fellowship.

Chapter 21: Protecting Your Church

Warren concludes his discussion of fellowship with a call to unity and a reminder that no church is perfect. Because of the fact that all churches are comprised of sinners, there will be disappointment. But that is no reason to leave a church (only to be disappointed by the next one). God calls us to fellowship because He wants us to learn together and to live together. If we are too hasty to leave a church because of our disappointment, then it is a sign of immaturity. We must fight for unity within our church by focusing on our common beliefs and mission. This is not a call to ignore sin or theological disagreements (Warren is not encouraging cultural tolerance or requiring uniformity, respectively), but it is a call to remember that both can be dealt with in the context of God's desire for us to grow together. Is the Church full of hypocrites? Yes, you're one of them; I'm one of them, and neither of us can escape any of rest of them.

God calls us to treat others the way we want to be treated. If we want to be lovingly and respectfully corrected, we must be willing to do the same for others. Dealing with matters in unloving and disrespectful ways only causes disunity and strife, and frankly, does not encourage someone to change or to reconsider but to desert- to run away from the Body of Christ where they do not have the protection of the Body from the Enemy. Unity is vitally important to the Christian life and it must be protected. (For more on properly communicating in difficult circumstances, I highly recommend the book Before You Hit Send by Emerson Eggerichs.)

Purpose #2: Fellowship (My Thoughts for the Apologist)

This is one of the sections that I have seen Warren taking some of the most heat from fellow Christians. Many have accused Warren of saying that "love" means to be inclusive of immoral behaviors and even non-Christian theologies. I even heard one person state that Warren was going down the same path as the Progressive Church in this book. However, when the full context of this part is read, and especially read within the greater context of the whole book, we see that those accusations simply are not correct.

I greatly appreciate how Warren emphasizes that we must love others in the Church but that that love, because all are still sinful and not omniscient, will often take the form of correction. It is not to say that just because someone disagrees that their view is therefore correct, it is to say that we must be willing to change our behavior and/or beliefs when a fellow brother or sister in Christ makes a legitimate case that we are wrong. And this can only accomplished if the Body of Christ follows one of the key requirements for the first purpose: study God's Word. Later when Warren discusses discipleship, we will further see how this is important and is vital to being able to accomplish God's purposes for our lives.

Next week we will look at Part 4: Created to Become Like Christ.

Continue on with the review (new links will appear as the parts publish):

Part 1: Created For God's Purpose

Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)

Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)

Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)

Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)

Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)