Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith; remove the wicked from the king's presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness (Proverbs 25:4-5).

Being a church leader can be infuriating at times.  I see all the junk that goes on in our church -- the selfishness, the gossip, the laziness, the back-biting, the quarrels, the lack of vision -- and I just want to go on a rampage.  "Get out of here!" I want to scream.  "Get out of here until you're ready to come back and get serious about following Jesus!"  I envision myself slapping people around and shaking them by the shoulders:  "You're ruining your own life, and you're ruining our church, too!"  A part of me starts to sympathize with the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages -- excommunicating infidels, burning heretics at the stake, and launching an all-out inquisition to purify the church of its imperfections.

Now, let me be quick to note that I've never actually done any of this -- yelling, physically accosting, excommunicating, or executing the church people who frustrate me.  But I've certainly imagined it.

There's so much potential in the church!  There's so much promise when a person (or group of persons) is walking closely with God and living with integrity.  I read the Book of Acts, and I realize that the possibilities for what could be accomplished are nearly limitless!  Unfortunately, however, we rarely get to see all this potential realized because we are corrupted, impure, and incomplete.  Here's where I start to realize that my own heart has enough impurities to distract me and divert me from all the things that I could be doing for God.  But especially when I'm grouped together with other men and women in community, there's enough imperfection to practically immobilize us.  How can we ever overcome these difficulties?  I wish I could be just like a metallurgist, skimming dross from the top of a pot of molten silver.  I wish I could be like a king, beheading the wicked schemers in my court or banishing them to the far corners of the earth.  It makes sense to me that removing the impurity and the wickedness should make for better, more beautiful, more righteous community -- but how is this really supposed to happen in the context of a church?!?

I think it all comes down to a constantly-renewed appreciation for the Gospel.

How are we ultimately separated from our impurities?  Only through Jesus Christ!  We can't do it on our own (Ephesians 2:8-9).  We can't run away from our problems (Psalm 139), and we certainly can't banish them from our presence with any kind of concerted effort on our part.  The only way that we achieve purity and escape from our imperfections is through embracing the perfection of Jesus.  Romans 8 tells us that God chose us and justified us (made it just as if we had never sinned), and that because of that, we can be convinced "that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).  And the more we can revel in the glory of this Good News, the more that we can separate ourselves from the things that hold us back as individuals and as a church.  The Gospel has to be a central part of everything that we do -- not just coming into a relationship with God, but living in it day-to-day.  This is the only way that we can ever really remove the dross from our silver and replace the wickedness in our presence with righteousness.  Romans 1:16-17 says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes... For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."  Amen, and Amen.