Weekend Christians

There are “real” golfers and then there are “weekend” golfers. I am neither. I am more of an “annual” golfer. While I thoroughly enjoy the game of golf, it does not really fit into the schedule or budget of our lives right now. However, there are those rare and wonderful occasions when I am invited to join a threesome for an important meeting with “Mr. Green.”

Here’s the deal with me and golfing. I come from a family of golfers–dad, mom, and brother all played while I was growing up and still play regularly today. Though I was raised in a golfing home, I did not like golf. Often times our vacations would be to golfing destinations. So while they were out chasing that little white ball around, I was swimming in the pool, playing at the beach, hitting tennis balls, wasting (no, “investing”) quarters at the arcade, or bowling. Occasionally I would begin a round of golf with them thinking I would learn to like it, but after a few holes I would resign to golf cart driving duty and ditch them at the turn. It was not until my days in seminary that I actually took golf up and enjoyed it. Every once in a while a few classmates and I would head north on Interstate 5 to the middle of nowhere and get a welcomed reprieve from the rigors of seminary life. One of my golfing buddies and I decided that if we could not be quality golfers, we could at least increase the quantity of our golf. So on one Monday we left the house before dark and arrived at the course just at sunrise. We played all day long, taking only a break for lunch, and got in 65 holes.

When I go golfing now, I can temporarily fool people into thinking I am actually “a golfer.” I dress the part, having been given nice golf shirts from tournaments my parents have attended. I can speak the golf lingo and know the rules pretty well. I have nice clubs. They are hand-me-downs from my dad after he got new clubs for his 50th birthday, but they’re really nice 2nd-hander’s. I even have an okay swing, since I have watched a lot of golf in my life and had free coaching from my dad and brother. So when I step up to that first tee and join a group of strangers, they probably think they are getting a real ball-striker. And I can usually keep fooling them off the tee box. My driver is my most consistent club in the bag. I don’t hit it terribly long, but I can generally hit it straight about 225 yards down the fairway. I might even hit my second shot well and end up on or near the green–still fooling the rest of my foursome. But then reality sets in on and around the green. Because I don’t play more than 2-3 times a year, I have absolutely no feel for short game. My chips and putts are wildly unpredictable.

And this is how the game of golf works for a hack like myself. I have enough muscle memory to go out and hit my woods and irons decently even though I only play sporadically. But I cannot keep the “feel” of putting and chipping without consistent practice. I can fool the casual observer with my golfer-like dress, equipment, and even swing. But if they watch carefully at all, they will notice that I am not the real deal. I don’t have “the touch” that comes with hundreds of rounds of golf and hours of putting and chipping practice. I am in fact, a poser.

There are posers in the church as well—“Weekend” Christians. They may have grown up in Christian homes, speak Christianese, dress Christianly, decorate their home with the latest “Jesus Junk,” have their car covered in Christian bumper stickers, consistently go to Sunday worship and all the church’s extra functions, and maybe even have some speaking ability that makes them appear to be a good teacher and example. They fool casual observers into thinking they are the real deal. But watch them closely and you realize that something is missing. They can fool people with external shows of righteousness, but they have no “feel” for holiness–there is no humility, gentleness, patience, purity, self-control, love, or prudence. They understand the basic “rules” of the Christian life well, but they have no zeal for Christ. There is a thin facade of external righteousness that covers over a vacuum of godlessness. Like the Pharisees, they ”clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25). They are “like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (23:27).

It would be easy to talk about “them” and to bash “those” hypocrites in the church. But with only a small dose of self-examination, the little pharisee within my own heart is clearly seen. The “log” in my own eye is big and it hurts. On the importance of true holiness in the life of a pastor, Charles Spurgeon said this:

Your whole life, your whole pastoral life especially will be affected by the vigor of your piety. If your zeal grows dull, you will not pray well in the pulpit; you will pray worse in the family, and worst in the study alone. When your soul becomes lean, your hearers, without knowing how or why, will find that your prayers in public have little savor for them; they will feel your barrenness, perhaps, before you perceive it yourself. Your discourses will next betray your declension. You may utter as well-chosen words, and as fitly-ordered sentences, as aforetime; but there will be a perceptible loss of spiritual force.

That thought frightens me to my knees in prayer. May God give us (me) the grace to walk in the fear of the Lord and live authentic, godly lives for His glory in Christ Jesus. May we not find contentment in being superficial, man-pleasing, posers, but rather strive after being men and women who are holy from the inside out.

Justin Culbertson
Berachah Bible Church