7 Dwarfs

I want to talk about some of the bad habits Christians tend to get into in living out their faith practically. But instead of just listing them randomly, we're going to compare each of the habits we talk about to one of the Seven Dwarfs.

(grammatically, it seems to me that it ought to say "Dwarves", but apparently that's not how Disney did it!)

Who can name off the seven dwarves?

Doc, Grumpy, Dopey, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy and Sneezy

Doc- He's known for being the smart one, though he's always stammering.

The problem with being a "Doc" Christian is that they know everything about Christianity, but it's just a head knowledge. Doc Christians can tell you which book of the Bible I the longest, what the three Cardinal Virtues are, what the 7 deadly sins are... Etc, etc, Etc. But the Bible makes it clear that "If I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:2

Having faith in God is about way more than just knowing about what you believe- it is about knowing the person that you believe in. It's about love. And it should be a life transforming thing. A lot of people who become Christian fall in love not so much with Christ, but with the things of Christ. So they love reading the Bible, and learning as much as they can, and knowing the Church history, and being able to argue to defend the faith.

All of this is well and good, but the truth is that just because you know a bunch of stuff about Christianity, this does not actually make you a Christian! The word "Christian" means "one who is like Christ", and the things that really drew people to Christ was not how smart he was, though that was impressive, but how holy and loving he was.

Christians are often accused of pride or self righteousness. We want to know the truth not because we love the truth, but because we want to be able to impress our friends with how smart we are. What can happen is that we replace Jesus as our God and make our own intelligence our God. This is not actually dangerous, it is outright sinful! If the thing which excites you the most is how intelligent you are, it's time to give that over to the God who gave you your intelligence!

God has called us to love Him- but we fall into a trap of self-love. If we are reading the Bible, and memorizing it's verses, so that we can impress other people- this is wrong! We should be reading it in order to fall deeper in love with God. You've probably met people who can quote the Bible like crazy and argue anyone into the ground, but are they loving people by doing it?

I used to be like that. When I went to Bible School, I would read the Bible, Highlight passages, memorize them, and write them into a little red book that I carried with me. There were whole pages dedicated to different arguments- the Eucharist, confession, Divinity of Christ, etc. Then one day someone gave us a talk on being detached- and said that if there is anything, however small, that was holding us back from God, we had to get rid of it. I felt like God wanted me to get rid of my little red book. But I thought that didn't make sense, since this book was helping me to learn about God, and about the Bible, so clearly it was a good thing!

Later that day a lady approached me and said 'What things are you getting rid of?' I told her about some CD's that had inappropriate lyrics and things- she said "I think you should get rid of your little red book!" Weird, eh? So I did, I threw it out. And I realized that I had made my own ability to argue get in the way of loving God and other people. I started reading the Bible the way it was meant to be read, as a letter to myself from God.

Dopey

So while on the one hand we don't want to only know God intellectually, we don't want to be Dopey Christians either. There are some Christians who when asked stuff about God say "I don't know, God made it that way!" or whatever, and they say "Don't question the things of God!"

You probably heard about in the news how the Pope said something that made a lot of Muslims mad. He was talking about how it doesn't make sense to try to promote religion through violence, and he gave an example of an emperor who had complained about how Muslims would
kill people who refused to convert, or who tried to convert away from Islam.

The Popes point in this talk was that faith is rational- it is reasonable. There is a movement in Christianity today which says that God's reason is so far above our reason that we shouldn't even try to understand the things of God. Christians then become dominated by their emotions, and Christianity becomes something irrational. God is a God of Logic, and while we will never fully understand him with our puny brains, we do have the opportunity to begin to understand.

God wants us to question things, to use our minds and try to understand things. One of the greatest gifts that he gave us is our intellect and our ability to reason- this is the thing that philosophers say sets us apart from the animals. It is our gift of reason which allows us in turn to make real decisions of the will.

But a lot of Christians have bought into a kind of irrational an anti-rational faith, saying that since Christianity is a relationship, than we should rely entirely on emotions. Emotions too are gifts from God, but just like when you marry someone you can't be loving only when you feel the emotion of love, so in our relationship with God we need our intellect for when our emotions are not inspiring us to love God.

Grumpy

What is wrong with being a Grumpy Christian?

Well, obviously if we are grumpy, then other people are not going to want to be Christian. There are some Christians who have a very dark outlook of the world. They see the sins of other people, and the things going wrong in our own world, and they are mad. There are Christians who sit there in church every week with a scowl on their faith, and they don't even know that they're not being good Christians!

But Jesus said "I have come that your joy may be full." Jesus does want us to be joyful! He wants to fill us with joy! That's why there's a Christmas carol called "Joy to the World" and not one called "Anger and suppression to the world." Many people see Christianity, and all they see is the sacrifice, how we don't always get to do whatever we want, since some things are sins. What they don't see is that living a life of love and meaning brings way more joy than living a life of self indulgence!

Joy is also a virtue. So is mirthfulness- which means, laughing lots. Seriousness is not a virtue! So if we are the kinds of Christians who don't know how to have fun, then it is time that we began to practice the virtue of Joy! St Paul even wrote "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances." In other words, no matter what is happening, we should continue to have joy!

Happy

So, that said, what could possibly be wrong with being a Happy Christian?

The problem is, some Christians get the wrong idea. They think that since God wants to give us joy, then he must want to give us whatever will make us happy. And, if we are not happy, then God must not love us!

Now of course, God wants to give you every good thing. God loves you. But sometimes something that doesn't make us happy may in fact be a good thing. It's like if a mom said to her little boy "I want to give you good things" and the boy said "then give me candy and toys, and if you don't give me candy and toys, it means you don't love me!" The mom knows better- knows that it's better for the boy to have spinach and less material goods.

There are Christians who think that since we're Christian God won't let us get sick, we'll always have lots of money, bad things won't happen. This simply is not true! God uses suffering for the good, and a lot of times we may not even see any possible good from it. But we know that God, who is all good, and all powerful, loves us and has allowed it- therefore, it must be a good thing even if we don't see it.

To say that Joy is a virtue means that we should practice it even when things don't go so good for us. That's exactly the time that we will acquire the virtue from God as He intends! The difference then between being 'happy' and being 'joyful' is that you can be joyful even while crying because someone you loved died, but happiness is routed in external circumstances.

It should also be noted that you will not always feel happy. You may not always feel the love of God, or be on that God high- but your relationship with Him does not change. It isn't based in feelings.

Sleepy

What is wrong with being a sleepy Christian?

This one is probably a bit more obvious. God has work for us to do! We can't be lazy! There are a lot of Christians who become what I would call "consumer Christians". They go to Church and to OLVC and to Youth Group. They do praise and worship, and they look for the God highs. They do Bible studies, and may even evangelize to their friends.

But, as much as they love God and love the things of God, when it comes down to the work part 0f the faith they are more inconsistent. You know, helping people who are poor, or reaching out to less popular people, or keeping their room clean or doing the dishes without being asked. These are the kinds of things God has called us to do- but we're too tired. Jesus said "Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom." In other words, just 'cause you have an active prayer life, and you feel a love for God, if it does not translate into works, it does not mean much.

James wrote that "faith without works is dead" and said 'what good is it to see a poor man, and to say to him "Be clothed and well fed" and not to provide for his physical needs?"

Let's be honest- Christians are often people who go to Church and pray, but in their day to day life live just like everyone else. We like our comforts so much- our coke, our TV, our Ipod- that we are unwilling to be generous with people who can't even afford to eat. We like resting so much, that we don't take the time to do the work that God has called us to do!

We cannot be Sleepy Christians.

Sneezy

Now, what could possibly be wrong with being a sneezy Christian? Does God have something against allergies?

What makes Sneezy sneeze? Pepper, loud noises, getting startled, flowers- pretty much everything. Some Christians react just as easily! Every little thing that happens, Christians freak out to! Every time someone swears, or there's a bit of violence on TV, or someone gossips, or there's some sort of scandal or weakness around. Some times it may not even be an actual sin that gets us all upset! What about the person who is distracting in church, saying the responses too loud? Or the one who won't sing? Or the one who raises their arms?

Of course, we need to try to root out sin- all sin. If there's sex or violence or inappropriate humor on TV, we need to ask if we should be watching it.

On the other hand though, Jesus said 'don't try to take the sliver out of someone else's eye, when you have a log in your own.' In other words, Christians get so choked up at other peoples sins that they don't try to take care of their own!

Christians are often accused of being self righteous. Self Righteousness is a kind of pride that does not recognize your own sins. The Pharisees were brutally self righteous. they didn't even want to associate with tax collectors and sinners! But who did Jesus associate with?

Let's be honest here! We Christians who react so much to the sins of other people, and look at them in disgust and disdain, often do not even recognize our own sins! We are not loving the sinners around us- in fact, we are not even capable of loving them. Jesus addressed this again and again. Like the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector in the temple, and the Pharisee walks around in arrogance saying "Thank you god that I am so wonderful and sinless, and not some lowly sinner like that tax collector!" while the tax collector says "God, I'm sorry I have committed so many sins!" Who is justified in Gods eyes?

But even though we've heard it, this is often how we are. Instead then of reacting to the sins of everyone else, maybe it is time for us to recognize that it is only by the grace of God that we do not commit the same sins. Jesus referred to himself as a doctor, and said "A doctor does not go to the healthy people, but to the sick." We need to admit that we need Christ so that we can accept Him and begin to love the sinners around us. We are all sinners, in need of the mercy of God.

So we cannot be a 'Sneezy' Christian, who allows the little things to bug us so much that we are unable to love the people around us.

Bashful

The last of the dwarfs is Bashful. what's wrong with being a Bashful Christian?

The great commission was when, just before going to Heaven, Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations. In other words, we need to tell people about the truth, and try to bring them to it.

But when you're confronted at school or work or wherever about being a Christian, how do you respond? Are you proud of it? Do you get excited and try to tell other people about Jesus? Or are you ashamed?

Christianity is treated like something that we should be ashamed of. It is something different, which people regard as being naive, or for the emotionally unstable. And so people either deny that they are Christian, or they admit to it in a kind of apologetic way, as though it were a disease or disorder. There is an expectation of rejection.

First of all, you will be rejected and persecuted and mocked for being a Christian. Don't like it? Too bad, it's part of the package. Jesus said that seeing as they persecuted the leader, they will naturally persecute the followers.

When you agreed to be a Christian, when you made your commitment to Christ, it included with it standing up for truth even at the cost of personal rejection. Why should we care if people reject us when God is pleased with us? Jesus said "If you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father." In other words, don't go around being embarrassed of Christ- be proud!

Imagine if you had a Girlfriend or Boyfriend who was embarrassed of you. You liked them a lot, but and they'd go on dates with you and hold your hand, and tell you they love you, but when other people were around, they would treat you as some sort of a distant acquaintance, and say to people "Oh, this is my friend" or "This is my coworker." That's what we do to Christ, when we pray, and go to Camp and spend time loving him and then we go to school and pretend we don't even know Him.

We should be so proud of who Christ is and what he has done for us, that we just want to tell everyone! And when people mock us, we should be happy because that's what they did to Christ!

Snow White

So God does not want us to be a 'Dwarf Christian'- He wants us to be 'Snow White', since the Bible says "Though your sins were red as scarlet, I will make them white as snow."

If you have noticed that maybe some of these Christian bad habits are things you have acquired, then we need to go to God and give ourselves to Him and let Him transform us!