“The Challenge of Forgiving”

A sermon preached on 7 Sept 2014, Pentecost XI, at New Hope, Oakville, CT, on Matt 18:15-20

I.                   Looking Out for One Another

For fifteen months journalist Sebastian Junger followed a single platoon of U.S. soldiers stationed in a dangerous part of Afghanistan. Living and working in the midst of a warzone made Junger realize how much the soldiers had to rely on each other. What you do or don’t do as a soldier affects everyone else in your platoon. Junger writes:

Margins were so small and errors potentially so catastrophic that every soldier had a kind of de facto authority to reprimand others—in some cases even officers. And because combat can hinge on [small] details, there was nothing in a soldier's daily routine that fell outside the group's purview. Whether you tied your shoes or cleaned your weapon or drank enough water or secured your night vision gear were all matters of public concern and so were open to public scrutiny.

Once I watched a private accost another private whose bootlaces were trailing on the ground. Not that he cared what it looked like, but if something happened out there—and out there, everything happened suddenly—the guy with the loose laces couldn't be counted on to keep his feet at a crucial moment. It was the other man's life he was risking, not just his own .... There was no such thing as personal safety out there; what happened to you happened to everyone.

I remember hearing a talk early on in my ordained ministry in which the speaker reminded us that we Christians might like to think that, as church members, we were passengers on a cruise ship – but the reality is, we are crew members on a battleship.  There are tremendous joys, great satisfactions, and enormous benefits to being a Christian, but they come to us not because we are relaxing in an atmosphere dedicated to giving us pleasure, but because we are part of a great expeditionary force to free captives and release prisoners held by the enemy.  We are at war.

It is, to be sure, a spiritual war.  As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:9, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  Our weapons in this warfare are not bombs, bullets, and propaganda, but rather the spiritual weapons of prayer, love, and truth.

We are to use prayer, love, and truth as we reach out into the community around us in evangelism and service in Jesus’ name.  We are to use prayer, love, and truth as we worship the Lord on Sunday mornings.  We are to use prayer, love, and truth as we go to work on Monday morning.  And we are to use prayer, love, and truth in all our relationships.

II.                The Need for Church Discipline

It is with this in mind that I want to look at our Gospel reading from Matthew 18.  This is a passage where Jesus is looking ahead to the days when his ministry will be carried out by his people, gathered in local congregations.  He knows the human heart, and so he knows that we will hurt one another in various ways.  He provides a godly way to deal with those hurts – not with anger and revenge, but with care and compassion, so that relationships are healed and the body is restored to health.

Every denomination and most independent congregations have used this passage as the core of their church laws on church discipline.  “Discipline” is not a word that we particularly like, and few people want to be disciplined – but the truth of the matter is, we all need a word of correction now and then.  When Paul wrote of Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16, 17, he said, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  Note that Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, assumes that people will need reproof and correction.

The rules that Jesus gave for church discipline are often used in a harsh and heavy-handed way, as people, trying to be obedient to the structure Jesus has given us, read this passage – and often only this passage.  But the reality is that there are many other passages in the Bible that speak of how we are to deal with the reality that we are sinners who are forgiven but not yet perfect.  If we simply look at the context of the passage we read this morning, we see that it is surrounded by compassion and mercy.  Chapter 18 opens by noting that the disciples are engaged in a discussion of which of them is the greatest – and I suspect that it was not a calm discussion, but possibly one in which each put forth his virtues and pointed out the shortcomings of his fellow disciples emphatically.  Jesus intervened, telling them that their discussion was pointless, for, he tells us, we are to be like little children.  He goes on to remind them that presenting others with temptations is a dreadful thing to do, worthy of divine punishment.  He tells us that we are to avoid tempting situations even if the cost of doing so is great: “cut off your hand…”  Then Jesus goes on to give the Parable of the Lost Sheep, in which he says that each one of his people is of such great importance to him that he will search high and low to restore them, like a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep in the fold to go find one that is out in the wilderness.  Then following this passage on dealing with a brother or sister who has sinned against you, Jesus tells the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  He reminds us that we have been forgiven far greater offenses against a loving God than any person could offend against us, and that therefore the only possible thing to do is forgive as we have been forgiven.

The context of the passage reminds us that church discipline is to be carried out in compassion and love.  We are reminded of this need by what Paul says in Galatians 6:1-2, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  Correction must be clear, but it also must be careful and caring.

During the Reformation, many of the Reformers said that the three marks of a true church are the preaching of the Word, the celebration of the Sacraments, and the administration of church discipline.  They saw discipline as needed for several reasons.  One is that false teaching had to be pointed out, and the false teacher either corrected or removed from a teaching ministry.  Secondly is that sins against one another harm the Body of Christ – certainly those immediately involved, but also others nearby.  If you have ever been in a work setting where two of your co-workers were at odds with each other, you know how their bad relationship affects the whole workplace.  It is much harder to get the job done when tension fills the air.  Thirdly, a person cannot grow in the knowledge of the Lord and in faith unless they are able to know their sins and faults and deal with them.  Hopefully, we are sensitive to our own sins, but we can be blind and need another person humbly to help us to see our weaknesses.

Church discipline is not the easiest thing in the world.  It is, however, something that is needed for the health and growth of the church, individually and as a community.

III.             If You Are the One to Go to Another

The Gospel reading begins with Jesus saying, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between him and you alone.”  There are two things I want to note about what Jesus says here.  The first is that we are to go to the person in question – we are not to go to someone else and say, “I am so hurt!  You won’t believe what Sam did to me…”  I know that it is tempting to go to someone else and gripe, for talking to someone else about their sin is a very difficult thing, and it is comforting just to complain and not confront.  Jesus is clear, however: if we have been hurt, there is only one person to speak to, and that is the person who hurt you.

The second thing I will note is that Jesus is providing a way for the other person to recognize his sin, repent of it, be forgiven, and all the while keep his dignity.  If it is just between the two of you, then those who are not directly affected by the sin need not know about it.  The two of you can deal with it, it can be forgiven, and then you can both let go of it.  You and the other person will have grown in the process.  If he cares to share how he grew with others afterwards, that is fine; it is his choice – but do not share the situation with anyone else beforehand, and only with the other’s permission afterwards.

We are to go to the other person – and that to me raises another question: how are we to go?  It is important that we go in the right frame of mind, or we may do more harm than good.  As the passage in Galatians says, if we see another in sin, we are to go “in a spirit of gentleness.”  We cannot go in a spirit of anger, or in a desire to make the other person feel miserable.  Anger will only raise the other person’s defenses and make it impossible for him to receive a call to repentance.  A desire for someone else to feel miserable is also something that raises defenses and prevents a godly response to a word of correction.

There is only one way to go, and that is in the spirit that the unforgiving servant should have had: in humility.  You may well have been grievously hurt by your brother or sister in Christ – but what that person has done is nothing compared to what you have done to God.  To sin against the living God means that at a legal level, we have broken his law, and deserve death from him because of that.  Every sin is an act of treason against the Kingdom of God.  More than that, at a personal level, we have in effect said to God, “You may consider yourself wise, but you are not as wise as me – I know better than you.”  We have said, “If you really loved me, you would have allowed me to do this – and because you told me not to, it is clear that you do not love me.  Some ‘Father’ you are!”

Our sins are both a legal offense against the laws of the King and a personal affront to our loving heavenly Father.  We have broken both his law and his heart with our sins.  Yet in Romans 5:8 we read, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  We have done nothing to earn or deserve God’s mercy in forgiving us our sins and his grace in granting us the very righteousness of Christ so that we may stand before him as sons and daughters, fully accepted and called beloved.  We have not and we could not have earned such an enormous blessing – so when we go to another who has sinned against us, we go as forgiven sinners.

We need to go to someone who has sinned against us; we need to forgive, and they need to repent.  We both need to grow through doing so.  But there is only one way to meet an erring brother or sister: at the foot of the cross, for only in the cross do either of us receive God’s grace.

If your first, private, interview does not bring repentance, then you would need to follow with the remaining steps, of bringing two or three others to bear witness to the conversation and to encourage the erring person to repent – or, if needed, bring the matter before the whole congregation, since the sin affects them as well, if only indirectly.

If worst comes to worst, then the person will need to be excluded from the communion.  Jesus tells us to treat such an unrepentant person “a Gentile and tax collector,” which means that they are to be outside table fellowship.  But at the end of Matthew, Jesus sends us “into all the world,” to the Gentiles, to make disciples, so we are to treat them with love and respect, seeking to win them back to a full-fledged faith in Christ, so that they can be restored to full fellowship and enjoy the Christian community again.

I heard the story of a man who was a member in good standing of a church and who committed adultery.  He rejected all attempts to correct him and refused to reconcile to his wife.  Indeed, he divorced her.  He told the elders of the congregation to go away; the last thing he wanted to do was to darken the doorway of that church again – and he vanished.

Two years later, he called the pastor, anxious to restore his relationship to the church – and to his wife.  His wife was astonished.  She had been reluctant to trust him, but the obvious changes in his priorities and in his life opened her heart to him.  This man was active in the Army Reserves, and his unit had been sent overseas to process the bodies of the military who died in Iraq and prepare them for their return to the States. God's hand was working in his life as he was confronted on a daily basis with the brevity of life and permanence of eternity. Following this tour of duty, and upon returning home, he met with the elders, confessed his sin, and asked to be forgiven for his arrogance and the impact his life had on the local body.

The church had humbly and lovingly followed the directions of the Lord Jesus – and in due course, at a time when no one expected it, the Lord used their discipline and the man’s experiences to restore a heart to the Kingdom.

IV.              If You Are the One Approached

Let’s look at this idea of going to the one who has offended you from another angle: suppose YOU are the one who is approached and asked to repent.  What then?  It is hard enough to go to someone who has transgressed against you – what if you are the one who is thought to have done wrong?

As Pastor John Ortberg has said, “Trying to grow spiritually without hearing the truth about yourself from somebody else is like trying to do brain surgery on yourself without a mirror.”  If somebody comes to you and tells you that you have done something to wrong them, accept them and hear them out.  After all, we are all sinners and we sin every day in ways both large and small.  It is quite possible to do something to hurt someone else and never notice that we did.

Of course, perhaps we have done something wrong and recognized that we have harmed someone else a bit later – or, sadly, we have seen an opportunity to help ourselves at the expense of another person and taken that opportunity, hiding our actions as much as possible.  In Matt 5:23, Jesus tells that if we are aware that we have sinned against someone, to set aside even worship and go to the person we have harmed and ask their forgiveness.  But if we have ignored that instruction, and someone comes to us, we need to listen carefully to what they are saying.

Perhaps the perceived offense is really a misunderstanding.  In that case, if you have received the other person graciously, it will be much easier to see if it is indeed a misunderstanding and if so to clear it up.  As Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”  After all, even if the person is mistaken about the offense, or comes with some anger or a desire for revenge, the intention is still to make things right, and that is commendable.

In the course of my walk with the Lord, I have had people come to me a number of times and say, “There is something we need to talk about.”  What followed has never been easy, and the first few times I entered into such a conversation, I fought their assertions tooth and nail.  I was blessed those first few times to be dealing with people who were patient and determined and who wore down my wall of resistance.  When I heard what they had to say, it was not easy, but it was good for me.  Sometimes I had offended them, and other times, the person noticed a pattern of behavior in my life that was harming others or getting in the way of my effectiveness as a servant of God, and they wanted me to know about it and repent of it.

It is a blessing to be corrected.  We do not like to think that, but it is true.  Part of what goes on within us sinners is that we believe, in our heart of hearts, that we are acceptable to other people and to God based on our performance.  We see people being applauded for achievements in school, or sports, or in other areas of life, and it is easy for us to believe that God operates in the same way, so that we must perform in order to be commended and accepted by him.  If we think that the basis of our acceptance before God depends on what we do and how well we do it, we are certain to protect our images by refusing to hear any criticism.  We will resist strongly, and what began as an effort to help us grow in grace and in love becomes a shouting match.

But if we recognize the reality is that we are indeed sinners whose only hope of acceptance before the living, holy God is the matchless work of the Lord Jesus as he laid down his life as a sacrifice on our behalf, then we can receive correction with graciousness.  We know that he has taken our sins and given us life and his own righteousness, so we need not defend our own accomplishments.

Jesus gave us these commands in Matthew 18, along with those in Matthew 5, because he knew that we are, like the disciples, prone to step on one another’s toes.  Since we are his chosen vehicle for reaching the world, he wants us to stay in fellowship and be partners in the Gospel, using our gifts to bring others to Christ, to train them, and to enable them to reflect his glory and reveal his character.  We need one another to fulfill the great commission that the Lord Jesus has given us.  We are in the midst of a great expedition to rescue captives and to free slaves – and it requires teamwork by a team who cares for one another.

There is great joy in being a Christian, for we are becoming what God created us to be as we grow in Christ.  We can know the Father, who loves us and cares for us, because of Jesus, his Son, who died for us, and we can serve him in the power of his Holy Spirit – but we do so not as a collection of individuals, but as a team.  As I said at the beginning, we are not passengers on a cruise ship but the crew members of a battleship.  Our weapons of warfare are not bombs and bullets, but prayer, love, and truth.  If prayer, truth, and love characterize our relationships with one another in the local congregation, they will also be seen in how we reach out to those who do not yet believe.

As crew members we encourage each other to be our best – to bring growth to one another and honor to Jesus as we become more and more like him.  It is for this reason that Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.”  When we speak the truth in love to one another, we are like Jesus, who always spoke the truth, and always spoke in love.

To the Lord who came to us when we had sinned against him be glory now and ever more.

"You Are The Salt of the Earth"

Preached at the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd, Forestdale, MA 

9^th February 2014; Epiphany V

Matthew 5:13-22

I. “You are the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World”

Thirty some years ago, when Mary and I lived in Virginia, we bought a Smithfield Ham.  If you have ever tasted one, you know that they are delicious.  Smithfield hams are not like most of the hams you buy at the grocery store, which are chemically cured and need to be refrigerated to stay fresh.  A Smithfield ham is cured the old-fashioned way.  It is rubbed thoroughly with a mixture of salt and spices, and slowly cured by hanging and smoking for six months.  It will keep indefinitely in a cool, dry place – and it is incredibly delicious!

In Matt 5:13, Jesus tells his hearers, “You are the salt of the earth.”  In verse 14, he adds, “You are the light of the world.”  In using these two comparisons, Jesus is telling us what results he expects from those who follow him.  Just as salt preserves perishable food from decay, so we are to act against the corrosive effects of an ungodly culture.  Just as light expels darkness and reveals things as they are, Christians bring the truth about sin and about salvation to a world that is sin-sick and filled with sorrow.

I want to look at two things this morning.  The first is what Christians can do, according to Jesus, to act as salt and light to a decaying and dark world.  The second thing is to look at how we are enabled to act as salt and light.  When you consider that we are not dealing with simply the few people right around us, being salt to the earth and the light of the world means we have a large and formidable task given to us.  We need more than human methodology to do that.

II. How Our “Salt” and “Light” Can Bring Change

American culture has changed a great deal in the last 50 years or so.  Mary and I watch a number of old comedy shows with Netflix – things like The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.  They are creative, hilarious shows.  We really enjoy them.  We do not watch currently produced comedies, and haven’t for quite a few years.  The level of sarcasm, denigration, and explicit sexuality is horrendous.  They may be somewhat funny, but if so, it is in a sick way.  The comedies that are broadcast now would never even been considered for production in 1965.  Many of the other shows on TV, such as crime shows, specialize in the bizarre and outlandish.

Of course, the corruption of our culture is not limited to TV shows.  It shows up all over the place – the rise in single-motherhood, the idea that marriage is the invention of the state and can be defined and re-defined at will, the rise in drug use, the legal acceptance of abortion, the idea that religious liberty is restricted only to how we worship and not to how we live, and many other changes show the decline of our culture.

In many ways, this decline should not be a surprise to us.  Human beings are inherently sinful and have been since the rebellion of Adam and Eve.  We cannot expect those who are in rebellion against God to welcome and obey his way of doing things.  We who have been redeemed, forgiven, and restored to a positive relationship to God with the aim of living in obedience to him should indeed stand out in the world and be an influence for good, helping to preserve from corruption and showing the light of God’s love.

How do we do that, however?  I know that one way that has been popular is to be politically active, seeking to have Christian candidates for office, forming lobbying groups, groups to educate the public, and so on.  I get mail from half a dozen such groups on a regular basis.  This method has had some effect; we have seen progress in the area of making abortion less popular and less accessible.

In the early 1800’s in England there was a group of people who became known as the Clapham Sect.  They were people from the nobility and upper classes who had become Christians through the Evangelical Revival that had begun under John Wesley and which had continued for some time afterwards.  William Wilberforce was a member of the group, and he led a movement that first stopped slave trading in Great Britain and throughout the British Empire in 1808 – and by 1835, ended slavery completely.  The group also worked to revise labor laws, provide a variety of educational opportunities, and provide for the poor.  They prayed hard and long, and worked well within the political system of the time.  They did an amazing amount of good out of their Christian concern for their nation.  Political action is one way to be salt and light.  But it is not the only way, and may not be the best way.

When one considers the situation at the time of Jesus, it is clear that political activism was not the means which Jesus had in mind as the primary way his followers were to be salt and light.  Political activism was not an option for the early Church.  They lived in a dictatorship, not a democracy, so they had no voice in governing.  We in America do live in a democracy, so we have political involvement as an option – we can use it but we must keep other means in mind and use them as well.  The political process can tempt us into pride, stubbornness, and the lure of power for its own sake.  Politics subjects us to pressure to find money, and tempts us to raise it by devious means.  We can become angry, mean, and deceptive as we engage in political action.  To try to influence the culture by political means is a tool that we can use, but it does have dangers.

Jesus had something else in mind than the political process when he spoke of Christians being the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  The Beatitudes come just before the passage we read today, and I believe that the Beatitudes tell us how to be light to a dark world and salt to a decaying one.  The concluding verses of the Beatitudes tell us that we shall encounter opposition in our seeking to live in a way that honors Jesus.  Indeed, we shall be persecuted if we determine to be loyal to Jesus in a culture that seeks to ignore him or honor him as simply one good man among many others.

In the first nine verses of Matthew 5, Jesus tells us the qualities of character that are blessed by God.  The one who belongs to God will exhibit these qualities: 1) a poverty of spirit, knowing that one is unable to please God and has failed him often; 2) a mourning for one’s own sins; 3) a humble spirit; 4) a deep desire to have righteousness in one’s heart, thought, and action; 5) a forgiving and merciful attitude towards those who hurt one; 6) a heart that is totally fixed on God and his glory; 7) one who works for peace between others and between themselves and others when they have relational problems of their own; and 8) a heart that will prefer suffering for God to disloyalty to God.

Let me read those qualities again: (repeat).

The main reason that the Clapham Sect was able to be effective in their political efforts within England was not only that they were politically astute, but because they were men and women of prayer who cultivated the attitudes of the Beatitudes within their own hearts.  They were good at politics – but a large part of their political success was not because they were devious, underhanded masters of the political move, but because they were people of unimpeachable character, great humility, and a love for God that let people know they sought only to honor the Lord.

As we seek to let our lights shine, not for our honor but for God’s glory, with humility and patience, our character will do more to change lives and hearts than any political action we might undertake in our own merely human wisdom and strength.  Those who are poor in spirit and who long for righteousness for the honor of God make an impact upon those around them.  Sometimes it is an impact that brings persecution, but often it is an impact that brings positive change, at least in individual lives, and quite possibly on a wider scale. 

III. Tempting to Blend In

In speaking of our role in the unbelieving world as salt and light, Jesus lets us know that we need to actively engage the world.  We must be humble, but we also must be intentional.  In the latter half of verse 13, he says, “If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”  Then in verse 15, he says, “Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand.”

In Jesus’ day, the salt people used came from the Dead Sea, and that salt was not only sodium chloride, but also other chemical compounds.  Sodium chloride, the salt we use and our bodies need, is very soluble, so if a batch of that “salt” got wet, it could lose the table salt part but still look as it did before – and be utterly useless to preserve food or even flavor it.  If a Christian fears persecution or even simply does not want to be regarded as a “religious nut,” it can be tempting to hide his light in order to blend in with whatever the larger society is doing, whether that is pleasing to God or not.  And in today’s culture – it won’t be.  A century ago, our culture was based on a Christian worldview.  Today, it is not – and often intentionally not.

Jesus warned us that we would be tempted simply to blend in and adopt the views and values of the unbelieving world around us.  And he told us that we must not succumb to that temptation, or we would be worthless to the Kingdom.

IV. Being Enabled By God as Salt and Light

In verses 13-16, Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world – and that we must remain salty salt and a light that is in the open.  We can’t blend in or hide.  We know from the verses which precede our reading today that the way we are salt and light is to have what is described in the Beatitudes becoming more and more true of our character and lives.

Our reading continues in verses 17-20.  In these verses, Jesus tells us that the Law will continue to apply, for all time.  He has not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  Until the world ends, the Law will stand.  We must teach the Law to one another, because it has come from God and he has not set it aside.

That is a tall order – and to underline how greatly he means it, in verse 20 Jesus says, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Since the scribes and Pharisees were regarded as the holiest and best of people in all Jewish society, the people who heard this must have felt their hearts sink.  To use a sports metaphor, it would be like being told, “All you have to do to win a gold medal in figure skating is to score a perfect 10.”  Even the most-practiced skater would feel how high a standard that was.

While we haven’t read the rest of chapter 5 or chapter 6 this morning, Jesus goes on to explain what the requirements of the Law really are – one is guilty of murder not only by committing the actual physical act of killing someone on purpose, but simply by nurturing hatred in one’s heart.  One is guilty of sexual immorality not only by engaging in sexual relations outside marriage, but by day-dreaming of doing so.  Jesus goes on for most of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, telling how high the standards God has, and how deeply we must observe them – not only in action, but in thought and desire.  The Pharisees were outwardly obedient to the Law, but what Jesus says reveals that no one, not even the Pharisees, are perfectly pure and holy from the depths of their hearts on out.

The Sermon on the Mount is a beautiful description of Christian values.  It tells us what God expects of us.  The trouble is, mere information is not really a help.  I’ve heard some people say, “In my life, I seek to follow the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.”  They speak as though they were basically successful in this attempt.  I know that such people may talk about the Sermon on the Mount, but they only know the name, not the actual teachings.  They could not speak so glibly about following the Sermon on the Mount if they really understood it.

Jesus tells us the absolute purity required to please God for a very simple reason: the very first Beatitude is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  If pondering the requirements of the Sermon on the Mount does not make you recognize your own poverty of soul, your own incapacity to do what God requires, then you simply do not know the Sermon and your own heart.  C. S. Lewis has said, “No man knows how bad he is until he tries really hard to be good.”

The Sermon on the Mount brings us face to face with the reality that we have nothing in ourselves to commend ourselves to God.  We are so far from righteousness that we are hopeless.  We could not get close to even the outward holiness of the Pharisees, let alone the inner purity that God requires.  When we know God’s requirements and our own hearts, it drives us to our knees.  If we must be that pure, what hope do we have?

In knowing our spiritual poverty, we can begin to be blessed by the riches of God’s grace.  We mourn our sins, our defiance of the God who created us and who loves us.  We become meek and humble, for we know we have no standing before God in ourselves.  We long for righteousness as a thirsty man seeks water, a starving woman looks for food.  We recognize that we have nothing to call ourselves better than others, and so stand ready to give mercy to our fellow sinners.  We long for our hearts to be made pure and holy.  In all this, we are opened to the blessings of God’s grace and mercy.

Earlier, we read from 1 Cor. 2, in which Paul said of his time in Corinth, “I was determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified.”  Later on, in 2 Cor 5:20-21, the Apostle Paul speaks of that crucifixion and tells us, “Be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus Christ, God incarnate, lived the perfect life that God demands of us.  He was utterly obedient to God’s will from the depths of his heart.  But our sin was laid on him, and he became regarded as a sinner when on the cross.  When Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” on the cross, he was bearing the due results of sin, being banished from God’s presence – not for his own sins, but for ours.  When Jesus rose from the grave, his perfect life and perfect sacrifice were vindicated as acceptable to the Father.

God the Father counted our sinfulness to Jesus on the cross – and as we rely not on our own righteousness but on Jesus in his death and resurrection, his righteousness is counted to us.  We have, by God’s mercy and grace, not the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, but the very righteousness of Christ himself, which far exceeds any human accomplishment.  Therefore, we may enter the kingdom of heaven with confidence and joy.  As Jesus says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.  He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.”

The Sermon on the Mount is a good guide for life – but the more fully we understand it, the more we recognize that we have no hope whatever in ourselves to live out its requirements.  That leads us to recognize our spiritual poverty, and from that recognition the blessings of the Beatitudes can begin to flow.  It is only when we know our own helplessness that we find the help we need – and we find it in abundance.

It is when we know the reality and the depth of God’s mercy to us that we become the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Our very lives and how God is changing them to be more like Jesus enables us to have a quality that preserves against the corruption of society and an inner light that glows with the loves and glory of the Lord Jesus.  We may get politically involved to try to stem the tide of a further falling away from good order and decency, but simply being more and more like Jesus in his humble, prayerful strength will have a powerful effect.  It changes how we interact with others, how we view them, how we care about and care for them.  No one of us can change the entire culture – but each one of us, through prayer and mercy, can be the Lord’s agent of change in the life of another person.

Mary and I thoroughly enjoyed that old-fashioned Smithfield Ham we bought long ago.  It was over six months old, yet the salt had preserved it from decay.  And it was delicious!  As we discover our need for God’s mercy and grace, we find that he is fully faithful in extending that grace and mercy to us – and as he does, he “salts” us with the Holy Spirit so that we become salt and light to the world, transformed from being selfish to being men and women who are more and more like Jesus, and who touch the lives of others with the love and truth that Jesus extended to all.  We light the world with the love of Christ in us.

To the Lord who preserves us and keeps us whole and safe for his kingdom be glory now and evermore.  Amen.

Last Pentecost, 24^th Nov 2013; New Hope        Col. 1-11-20; Lk 23:33-44

“No Matter Who Is President, Jesus is King”

I. The Lord is King Over All the Earth

In the fall of 2012, as we approached the election, I often saw the saying, “No matter who is president, Jesus is king” on Facebook.  That was a good thing to be reminded of.  The United States is a nation with a wide variety of viewpoints and concerns, and we may be more divided in our hopes and ideas of how to make those hopes real than at any time in the last 150 years.  We who know Christ must remember that he is the one who is in charge and that our hopes do not finally rest in this nation, as wonderful as it is, but in the Lord Jesus and his eternal Kingdom.

If you have taken world history in high school or college, you know that the history of the world is the rise of one nation after another, followed by the fall of that nation as one stronger than it arises.  In biblical lands, the Assyrian Empire was followed by the Babylonian Empire, which was followed by the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great.  That was followed by the Roman Empire, which began five centuries before Christ, took over the entire Mediterranean world and a great deal of Europe and lasted until five hundred years after Christ.  Meanwhile, Chinese dynasties rose and fell, and the Great Wall was built to keep out invaders – who came in nevertheless because they could find traitors to open the gates for them.  We know also of empires in the Americas, in Africa, and in India.  Every empire felt proud and strong for a time, but even in their most glorious days they were not the ultimate power.  That honor belongs to the Lord Jesus, who is the Lord of history, to whom all nations must bow and all rulers must give answer.

The Bible, from one end to the other, proclaims that God is sovereign, and that even the hearts of kings are in his hand.  Psalm 145:13 says, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.”  Paul writes in 1 Tim 6:15-16, “[H]e who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”  These are but two of the many verses that speak of God’s rule over the world and over history.  He is king, he always has been king, and he always will be king.

Our reading from Colossians tells us that Jesus is king – and that we who trust in him belong to his kingdom.  We read the glorious verses of Col 1:12-16,  in which Paul prays, “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

In God’s astonishing mercy, we have been moved from Satan’s kingdom, “the domain of darkness,” into Christ’s own Kingdom.  He himself has qualified us to be in that Kingdom, so we need not fear judgment or rejection.  The Lord Jesus has accepted fully all who rely upon him and not themselves.  We belong not to the kingdom of darkness, but to the Kingdom of Light.

II. A Kingdom Open to Anyone

We learn some wonderful things about the Kingdom in today’s Scripture readings.  Looking at the Gospel reading from Luke, we see that the Kingdom is open to anyone.  The story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ tells us that two thieves were crucified along with Jesus, and that they mocked Jesus, telling him that if he was who had claimed to be, then he should show it by rescuing them all from the hideous and shameful death of the cross, a torture reserved for those who had rebelled against Rome.

But one of the thieves noted how Jesus behaved in this dreadful situation – Jesus did not curse those who had beaten him and nailed him to the cross.  Indeed, he had offered them forgiveness for treating him as they did while they were nailing his hands to the cross beam.  The thief saw a calm mind and a caring heart, and he began to change his mind about his fellow sufferer.  Verses 39-41 say, “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’  But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’”

The man knew he had done wrong, and that his punishment was richly deserved.  He had concluded that Jesus was innocent – indeed, that he was not only innocent, but a divine King.  In verse 42, he asked Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Here is a man who has admitted his wrongdoing.  He has the opportunity to repent, but there is nothing he can do in the way of good works, obedience to the Law, and any deed to merit God’s blessing and acceptance.  He simply confesses his need and his desire, to be in God’s Kingdom.

Jesus made a reply that assured the man of his acceptance: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”  What welcome words were those!  The man was transferred from the “dominion of darkness” to “the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son.”  As I said, the repentant thief could do nothing to merit God’s favor – he simply appealed to the mercy of the Lord Jesus.  That appeal is entirely in keeping with what our passage from Colossians says.  Paul does not rejoice that the Colossian Christians have worked their way from the dominion of darkness to the Kingdom of the Son – rather, he rejoices that God the Father has transferred them from death to life, from the realm of Satan to the Kingdom of God’s own Son.

Salvation is God’s action.  He transfers us from the realm of death to his own Kingdom.  His action is based not on our earning our way into his Kingdom, but in our admitting our need, our abandoning our own agendas, and our throwing ourselves upon his mercy.  Jesus did not tell the repentant thief, “I am thankful for your change of heart, but it’s too late; you need to do something more than just repent.”  Rather, Jesus said “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Salvation is God’s action, not our own.  To be saved means relying upon God and not ourselves.

III. A Kingdom Open to Anyone But Not Including Everyone

Two criminals were crucified with Jesus that first Good Friday.  One appealed to Jesus to remember him when he came into his Kingdom – and was immediately assured that he would be with Jesus that very day in Paradise.  What about that other criminal?  Was he brought into the Kingdom?

There is no evidence that he was.  He apparently continued to mock Jesus, sneering at his ministry and claims to kingship.  If Jesus really were the Messiah the mocking thief thought, why would he allow himself to be executed by the Romans?  It was the Messiah’s job to get rid of the Romans, but if the Romans were getting rid of him, then he could not be the Messiah.  The other thief wanted practical, immediate results, and when they did not come, he maintained his taunting distance.

One of the hardest things to understand about sin is that sin is not simply ignoring God’s commands, so that we do what he has told us not to do or fail to do what he has commanded us to do.  Rather, sin is a rebellion against the King of the Universe.  Sin is an attitude before it is an action; it is standing before the God of Heaven and Earth and telling him, “You’re not the boss of me!”  This attitude stands behind the disobedience involved in sinful actions.  Indeed, a person can be largely obedient to God, but be obedient for reasons other than God being wise Father and rightful King.  Some people obey God because it suits their purposes.  Some people obey God because their aim is to butter him up or impress him or otherwise get him to do something they want done but lack the power to do themselves.  Some people obey God because they want to earn their own place in Heaven.  Such people often wind up as Pharisees, who think that they are better than others, but who are blind to the depth and reality of their rebellion against the King of the Universe.

We enter the Kingdom only by God’s mercy.  We are incapable of earning our way into the Kingdom because we cannot even begin to know the depth of our rebellion against God.  We cannot correct what is wrong with ourselves.  C. S. Lewis once said that no man knows how bad he is until he tries very hard to be good.  Since God does not grade on the curve, but rather expects perfect obedience, we simply cannot do enough to merit his acceptance.

The second thief maintained his rebellion, and so remained in the dominion of darkness.  When he died, the yawning doors of hell closed behind him forever.  Such is the nature of sin, however, that he would rather endure the miseries of hell than be confronted with the undeniable rule and reign of God, for his heart was locked in rebellion.

The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom which is open to anyone, yet which will not include everyone.  Only those who admit their need, lay down their rebellious heart, and cast themselves upon the mercy of God will enter the Kingdom.  As someone once said, “One thief was saved, so that no one will despair of God’s mercy – but only one, so that no one will presume upon that mercy.”

IV. Our Goal: to Live as a Citizen of Heaven Even When On Earth

The repentant thief was promised that that day he would enjoy Paradise in the company of his King, Jesus Christ.  He died within a few hours.  We who are here this morning are people who have come to Jesus in the same way as that repentant thief – but we are alive.  While no one is promised tomorrow, we are not on a cross about to die, and we have a reasonable expectation of waking up tomorrow and the day after.  So what are we to do?  Do we simply go about our business as we please, or does trusting in King Jesus have any implications for our daily lives?

As the passage in Colossians says, God has “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”  We who love Jesus are his subjects, and as members of his Kingdom, it is our privilege and responsibility to live as his obedient subjects.  We have surrendered our rebellion and agreed to recognize Jesus as King – and not only to recognize him, but to love him and find our delight in obeying him.

As subjects of the eternal King and members of his Kingdom, our ultimate loyalty belongs to him, and our lives are to be lived in light of that loyalty.  When I was growing up in the Presbyterian Church, someone said that there are three words that summarize the Christian life: guilt, grace, and gratitude.  We recognize and confess our guilt, confessing to God our need for his mercy.  In his grace, the Lord extends his mercy to us, based on the death of Christ – as our Colossians reading says, the Lord used the death of Christ “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”  From that point on, we live in gratitude for what God has done, obeying him in recognition of his great mercy and love, and joyfully following his leadership to honor him.  Guilt, grace, gratitude.

The New Testament was written to explain those three words and how they are all centered on the Lord Jesus – and a good bit of the New Testament is dedicated to talking about how we may live in such as way as to honor and bless the Lord Jesus, our King.  There is no way I could capture all that on one Sunday morning, so I won’t even attempt it.

But I will take a few moments to say that living as a subject of King Jesus has two basic dimensions: an inner dimension and an outer one.  In Col. 1:9-10, just before our reading for today begins, Paul says, “from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”  Paul says that we are to grow in knowledge, which is part of the inner dimension, and to “bear fruit in every good work,” which is of course the outer dimension.

We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and we are to live according to our citizenship.  God is to have our ultimate loyalty, even though there are many things that clamor for our loyalty.  We can often recognize the lure of things that are attractive but also clearly evil and selfish – but usually God’s strongest competitors are good things.  Money is a good thing, in its place.  Authority is a good thing, in its place.  Pleasure is a good thing, in its place.  Patriotism is a good thing, in its place.  All these things are excellent, as long as they are servants but not masters.  Part of living in a way that honors the Lord Jesus as Lord is to use these elements of life in a way that reflects that, as good as they are, none are in the place of ultimate loyalty.  We can use them to honor Christ.  That is the inner dimension of being a subject of King Jesus, having hearts that view things around us from his values.

The outer dimension is what we actively do to reveal and to extend the Kingdom of God to those around us.  I'm a Facebook friend of Bryan Bywater and of a number of you all – and as I have read the posts about what New Hope does for so many people, I have been humbled and delighted.  Especially given the size of the congregation, it is an amazing set of ministries you are part of, and which show the heart of the King at work through you.  I am sure that as you seek to love others in Jesus’ name, you keep seeing other needs and other things that could be done – and you think, “Maybe we could be part of that, too.”  You are using money, authority, and other potential idols as servants of King Jesus, and that is a wonderful thing.  God is at work in you and through you.

I do not know what other things the Lord Jesus may have in mind for you, in terms of anything concrete.  I do know, however, that his goal is that he be King of your heart and King of your actions.  He has been, is, and will be at work both within you and through you to make his kingship real in your heart and revealed in your lives.  That is his ongoing work of grace in all those whom he has transferred from the dominion of darkness to the Kingdom of Light through his Son.

We belong to a kingdom that transcends time and that transcends space.  Men and women of ages past belong to it, men and women today belong to it, and, should the Lord delay his return, men and women of untold generations will belong to it – not only in the United States, but all around the world.  We are part of a kingdom of millions upon millions who know and love the Lord Jesus.

In 1958, a U.S. soldier wandered the streets of Berlin to see the sights. Despite the bustling new life in parts of the city, reminders remained of the destruction of World War II. Walking through a residential area one evening, across the cobblestone street he saw an open space edged with flowers. In the center stood the stone front of what had been a church. The building was no longer there, but the rubble had been cleared away in an attempt to fill the empty space with a little park. The former church's main door was shaped in a Gothic arch, and over it was carved into the stone in German: HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY BUT MY WORDS WILL NOT PASS AWAY.

As he stepped through the arch where the doors had once been, of course he wasn’t inside anything.  What was once a place of worship had been reduced to a patch of stone pavement and open sky.  Not so with the Door – Jesus Christ!  As we step into Christ, we enter into his unshakable, eternal presence.  It cannot be reduced; it can only be experienced – forever.

To our eternal King, ruler of heaven and earth, be glory now and forevermore. AMEN.

This is my sermon from Sunday, 3 November 2013; preached at New Hope Anglican Church, in Oakville, CT

All Saints Sunday                               Rev 7:9-17; Mt 5:1-12

“Letting the Light Shine Through”

I. Windows “Washed In the Blood of the Lamb”

Many of you are probably familiar with the story of a Sunday School class of elementary aged students that was discussing the idea of the saints the Sunday before All Saints Day.  The teacher asked, “Who is a saint?”  One kid said, “A really, really good person.”  Another said, “Someone who prays a lot.”  A third said, “Someone who never gets angry.”  One little boy sat and thought for a bit.  He remembered the big stained glass windows in the church building.  His parents had pointed out that one was about St Paul, and another about St Mary, and another St Peter.  Thinking about those windows, and the sun streaming through the colors of the stained glass gave him an answer: “Saints are the people the light shines through!” he exclaimed.

And that is really the best answer.  Saints are not amazingly good, prayerful, or peaceable people – saints are people through whom shines the light of Christ.  This past Friday was All Saints Day, a day on which we remember the many saints who have been and who still are serving the Lord in their daily lives and occupations.

We tend to think of saints in the same way that the kids in that Sunday School class did: saint are especially good, or extraordinarily prayerful, or exceptionally self-controlled.  However, when Paul wrote to the churches scattered around the Mediterranean during the first thirty or so years after Christ died, he addressed them to “the saints in Corinth” or the saints who are Ephesus,” or wherever it was he was writing.  From the letters, it is clear that many of the believers were in serious error of belief, or action, or both – but Paul did not write to “the saints and other believers in Corinth;” he simply wrote “to the saints who are in…”  From the New Testament usage, the word “saint” is not a special category of Christian, but rather that a saint is anyone who believes in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord.  The original, literal meaning of the word “saint” is “one set apart for God.”  The word “saint” does not describe a person’s moral condition; it describes their spiritual status: they belong to God.

A moment or so ago, I said that saints are the ones that the light shines through.  If these two things are true, how are they related to each other?  The answer lies in the spiritual realities that accompany faith in Christ.  Being a Christian is not simply intellectual assent to the essential teachings of the Christian Church – it is a dynamic connection with God in which he is at work in us.  Having been set apart for God through our reliance upon his mercy in Jesus Christ, he is at work within us, and his presence shines through us.  It is a lifelong process, and it is never fully completed in this lifetime – but through the power of the Holy Spirit, the light of Christ shines through ever more strongly.

II. The Foundation of Our Transformation

In the reading from Rev 7, we hear of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”  When John is asked who these people are, his response is, more or less, “I don’t know, but I am sure that you do.”  John’s angelic escort tells him, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

These are the saints of God, coming out of all times and all nations, and all languages.  They have come, the angel says, “out of the great tribulation.”  One popular view of the tribulation is that it is a seven-year period of intense persecution just before Christ returns to establish his kingdom, but that is not the only way to understand the tribulation, especially since the number seven is often used symbolically to refer to completeness.  I believe that the tribulation is the entire time period between the ascension of the Lord Jesus into heaven and his physical return to establish his kingdom in its fullness.  This vast multitude gathered before the throne and worshiping are all the saints – all those who have entrusted themselves to the Lord Jesus, from the first disciples up to whenever the Lord returns – be that this afternoon or ten thousand years from now.

This vast multitude are the saints.  They vary in nationality, ethnicity, language, and culture; they vary in personalities, skills, talents, and interests; they vary in spiritual gifts, in status as lay or ordained, in the nature and timing of their conversion to Christ, and in their roles within the local congregation.  But there is one thing – one essential thing – that they all have in common: as verse 14b says, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  Whatever variable things there may be among the saints, that one thing is essential.  If you are a believer, you have admitted that you are dirty and need to be cleansed, and you have trusted not yourself or your own efforts, but the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross as atonement for our sins.  As the Apostle John said in his first letter, in 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  The blood of Jesus makes us clean: we are forgiven.  And it is not a conditional forgiveness, as if the Lord were saying, “I’m wiping the slate clean and giving you a second chance, so be careful from now on.”  No, it is complete forgiveness for all our sins.  As Paul says in Romans 5:1-2, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”  We have access to God the Father, through the blood of his Son.  We have been reconciled to God, he has forgiven us completely, and his has sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts, so that we will be changed.  Romans 8:29 has been overshadowed by the verse that precedes it, but Romans 8:29 is an even more powerful verse: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”  God intends to restore in us the fullness of the image of God, an image that was marred by our rebellion against God.  We are promised in verse 28 that “All things work together for good,” – and that good is that we will be like Christ.

Our spiritual foundation is that one thing: the blood of Christ.  It has been shed as an atoning sacrifice on our behalf, and it cleanses us from sin.  We are acceptable to God, for he declares innocent.  Indeed, he declares us as fully righteous.  On the cross, he took our sins upon himself.  In his resurrection, he gives to us who trust him the righteousness that is his from his fully obedient life.  We are not only “not guilty,” we are fully accepted as having completely obeyed the Law.  In Romans 5:17, Paul speaks of those who trust Christ as being “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.”  We need have no fear in coming to God in prayer; he sees us as he sees his Son.  We have Jesus’ righteousness.

As Christians, as saints, this is our spiritual position: we are forgiven and we have credited to us the very righteousness of Christ.  We stand with that noble and vast crowd, those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.  Through this truth, and through the reality that the Holy Spirit has made his dwelling in us, we have the light within us that can shine out to a dark and troubled world.

III. Analyzing the Need

We have also read from the first verses of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.”  In this reading, we hear the Beatitudes, in which Jesus says that those who exhibit the qualities he lists will be blessed and joyful.  “Blessed are the merciful” does not make sense to many people; it is, after all, a “dog eat dog world” and we need to defend ourselves, or even attack first lest we be overwhelmed.  The Beatitudes sound lovely, especially in King James English, when you are in the stillness of a worship service – but they can certainly be dim and distant on a Tuesday morning when you are fighting traffic on the way to an important meeting.

Nevertheless, the Beatitudes are what Jesus taught as being the truth of life: it is blessed to be poor, to mourn, or to seek righteousness as if your life depended on it.  It is even blessed to be threatened with death because you have allied yourself to Jesus.

Let me read those seven key traits again, verses 3-9: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

If these things are blessed, then these are what we should seek – although I will hasten to say that seeking persecution is wrong.  However, if you seek the things listed in verses 2-9, you will be persecuted.  The world (those who ignore God) does not like godly people, so seeking persecution is not needed. But seeking will be needed to grow in having poverty of spirit, an attitude of mercy, a willingness to let go of your own agenda, or a desire to be at peace with others.  These things go against the grain of how the world works.

When a person who is set apart for God is mature, these are the qualities that will be part of their life.  When a person has these qualities, light shines through them.  Indeed, light begins to shine long as these qualities are being developed in a Christian’s life.

If that is true, then how do we manifest these qualities?  The classic American way of going about such a process is to ask, “Where do I want to be?  Where am I now?  How can I take steps to move from here to there?”  As those questions are dealt with, a plan is formed – steps to take to move from where I am now to where I want to be.  Anytime you go through a supermarket check-out line, you are going to see this idea on the covers of the magazines: “Thirty Days to a New You!”  “Five Easy Steps to Family Harmony.”  You have all seen things like this – and perhaps have bought a magazine with some hope of making progress in some area of your life.  Almost everyone wants to get better in some way.

There is one problem with this approach with regard to spiritual growth: it doesn't work.  It’s not a bad idea, and it might be part of what enables us to grow spiritually – but it is impossible to do the job all by itself.  We human beings are complex creatures.  We are intellectual, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual beings, and anything that seeks to make a life change through only one of those aspects of being human will prove to be insufficient.

We are intellectual beings, and we need to understand a problem and be able to devise a logical plan.  We are social beings, and we need encouragement from others when things are difficult, or someone to be glad with us when we are glad.  We are psychological beings, and we need to know something about ourselves.  One of the most helpful books I have read is called Telling Yourself the Truth.  We all tell ourselves lies about life:  One possible lie is “If this person rejects me, I am worthless.”  We tell ourselves lies that block the reality that one person cannot give you worth.  It may be deeply painful to have someone important to you reject you – but that is not a measure of your worth.  Your worth comes from God who created you and who loved you even as a sinner.

It is important to deal with the intellectual, social, emotional, and psychological aspects of our lives.  As I said, we are complex creatures, and there is no simple answer to any of the challenges we face.  We need to work through these areas as we grow.  The most important aspect of our nature, however, is that we are spiritual beings – and we need to use spiritual means in order to grow spiritually.  Those other elements are important, but they are not sufficient in themselves.  We need not just a plan, not just a reality check about our emotions and patterns of thinking – we need spiritual help.

Pastor J. D. Greer writes: “Think of [our relationship with Christ] like a balloon. There are two ways to keep a balloon afloat. If you fill a balloon with your breath, the only way to keep it in the air is to continually smack it upward. That’s how [mere] religion keeps you motivated: it repeatedly ‘hits’ you. ‘Stop doing this!’ ‘Get busy with that!’  This is my life as a pastor.  People come on Sunday so I can ‘smack’ them about something.  ‘Be more generous!’ And they do that for a week.  ‘Go do missions!’  And they sign up for a trip.  Every week I smack them back into spiritual orbit.  No wonder people don’t like being around me.

But there's another way to keep a balloon afloat.  Fill it with helium.  Then it floats on its own, no smacking required.  Seeing the size and beauty of God is like the helium that keeps us soaring spiritually.”

Guilt is indeed a powerful motivator, which is why it is easy for pastors to start using it.  But guilt is like a whip cracking in your ear – it motivates by fear.  We can easily become driven by fear of finding that God’s patience with us has run out.  But the reality is that his grace truly is gracious – he offers us unmerited favor.

There is a story told about a mother who came to Napoleon on behalf of her son, who was about to be executed. The mother asked the ruler to issue a pardon, but Napoleon pointed out that it was the man’s second offense and justice demanded death.  “I don’t ask for justice,” the woman replied. “I plead for mercy.”

The emperor objected, “But your son doesn't deserve mercy.”

“Sir,” the mother replied, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask.”  Her son was pardoned.

God offers us mercy in abundance.  As C. S. Lewis once observed, “The Christian does not think that God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us.”  The Beatitudes tell is where God wants us to be, but it is a misunderstanding of how God works in us to think that he tells us where he wants us to go and says, “All right, now it’s up to you.”

In order to grow into the characteristics expressed in the Beatitudes, we read them carefully, confess to God we are not there, and pray that he would empower us to grow into them. Indeed, given that there are so many areas in which we need to grow, the sane prayer is to ask God, “Where do you want me to start?  Show me the next thing to do, so that I can make progress.”

Last August, my son did a full Ironman competition – 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking, and 26.2 miles of running.  He did not, of course, just show up on August 18^th and cover these 140.6 miles of strenuous activity without having done anything else.  Rather, he began over a year beforehand, running a bit one day, biking another, swimming another, as he conditioned his body for endurance and strengthened it to be able to run, ride, or swim more effectively.  He started small and kept at it, increasing his activity a little at a time.  With this kind of thoughtful preparation he was able to complete the competition in 12 ½ hours.  It was far from easy, but because he approached the day gradually and thoughtfully, he was able to finish well.

Read the Beatitudes and ask God, “Where should I start?”  The Lord might tell you to take the area where you are weakest – or perhaps the area where you are currently the strongest, so that you can grow more there and that area can serve as something of an anchor for growth in other areas.  Because we are intellectual, social, emotional, and psychological beings as well, it can be helpful to use such things as personality analyzers or spiritual gift inventories.  The spiritual dimension is foundational and essential, but it is not alone.  If we ignore the spiritual dimension, we will be frustrated, for our problems all have a spiritual aspect that must be dealt with.  But if we let other aspects go in order to be “spiritual” we ignore tools that God has given us.

IV. Letting Our Light Shine

There are three things that I believe are essential in this process of spiritual growth.  One is regular study of the Bible.  When we read the Bible regularly and thoughtfully, allowing it to search our hearts, we know God better and we know ourselves better.  A second thing is prayer, which is a conversation with the living God who hears us – and who will speak to us. He will not use audible words, but he will bring Scripture to mind, or remind us of something a friend told us, or give us an insight into a situation that helps us to see the spiritual dimension that is going on there.

The third thing is a little harder to describe because it is not as objective as Bible study or as orderly as prayer – and that is keeping an eye out for God and his work as you go about your day: looking for answers to prayer, being aware of your heart, paying attention to the people around you to see their needs or their strengths, being aware of divine coincidences, and so on.

If you can build such foundational activities into your walk with God, you will make progress as one through whom the light shines.  As you take the Beatitudes or the list of the fruit of the Spirit as a way to look for an area to grow these basic disciplines will help you to grow.  You will be deepening your relationship to the Lord, and as you do his light will shine through you more and more.

I do think we need to look at our lives and see areas where we need to change in order for the light to shine more fully through us.  But when we look at them, we cannot get bogged down in those things.  We must also keep our eyes on God, remembering the cross where our sins were taken from us, remembering the resurrection, where Jesus rose in victory over sin and death, and rejoicing in God’s love for you and delight in you.  As we see the challenges we face in the light of God’s mercy, power, and love, we can be confident that God is at work in us.  When we pray, think, and plan, God is at work in those processes – and he is also at work in ways we do not see, which is wonderful news – he knows even better than us what is needed and how best to move us along.

Friday was All Saints Day, and today we are gathered as a body of saints in Oakville, Connecticut.  None of us is likely to show up on the calendar of saints that has come about as we seek godly examples of what it means to trust and obey the Lord – but we who trust in the Lord Jesus are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  That is what matters forever – that God has recorded us as his own holy ones, set apart for him.

His love will shine upon us – and as we rejoice in that love, his light will shine through us.  To the Lord who gives us light and life be glory now and forevermore, Amen.