Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tonight at church, I am speaking a little bit about Christmas and the story of the Prodigal Son.
I am sure you are wondering, what does the Prodigal Son have to do with Christmas, and I would say everything!
Let me start by saying the story of the Prodigal son is a special one because its one of those 3 for 1 deals. With one story, you get three applications. We see that there are three characters, the father, son, and a brother and with each character, there is an application. We see a story of the son’s EGO, life of sin, and then repentance. We see the father’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace. Then there is the brother’s who is angry and jealous that the father has so readily taken back the brother. Tonight, we are going to look at the story of reconciliation between the son and the father. And that’s why this story is important to Christmas. It’s a beautiful story of reconciliation and of a metaphor or parable of God the father, and mankind, which includes all of us.
My favorite Christmas song is Hark the herald Angle Sing, because of the line, “ God and sinners reconcile.”
It’s that line right there that is the good news we proclaim as Christians.
Lets look at the word reconcile for a moment.
The word reconcile means a couple of different things.
The dictionary defines reconcile as “case to co-exist in harmony; make or show to be compatible or to no longer appose.”
Try this definition on for size. How about “ to fix what is broke…”
So what’s broke? Well in the story we just read, we see that the father and son’s relationship has broke. So you understand how serious of a deal this was, let me explain some of the context. This isn’t a story of a son asking his dad for 100 bucks and staying gone all weekend. This is so much bigger than that. When the son asked his father for his inheritance in advanced, be basically wished his father dead. You are dead to me, so give me what I have coming is pretty much what the actions of the son spoke here. The son has shown complete disrespect, selfishness, and greed. We see first hand through the story what self-will run riot looks like. Surprisingly, the father grants the son his request and gives him his inheritance, then the son leaves. And what does he do with his money; he spent it on “wild living”.
By today’s standards of wild living, I think of Tiger Woods. Think of everything we learned about Tiger this last year and his escapades, and I think that Tiger’s once secret lifestyle is not too different from the Son’s.
During the course of time that the son was out living life in the fast lane, boozing, and eating at all of the best restaurants, chasing women, and gambling, he has no contact with his father. Why should he? He wished his father dead so that he could take his inheritance. The relationship that once was is not completely broken.
Let me pause there for a second and point out another relationship that was broken and that story is in Genesis chapter 3. See, after God made earth, and all of the animals and mankind, Adam and Eve, he said it was Very good. And He had a relationship with Adam and Eve and would walk amongst them in the garden. They had a direct line to the Creator. They had a perfect relationship with God. They were in harmony with God and did not appose Him, that was until the serpent shows up on the scene. And we know, as the story goes, Eve eats from the tree and then has Adam eat, and immediately their relationship with God was forever changed. They were once naked and unashamed, but now, they run and hide and cover themselves. Of course, God is not happy about this, and because God is pure and holy he cannot be in a relationship with sin. Which is what Adam and Eve brought upon themselves.
The bible tells us that God is a loving and kind; however, he is also just and in Him there is no darkness. 1st John 4:8 reads God is Love, with that in mind, let me read you a quote from a Thomas Thaherne, a priest and private Chaplin, in the later part of the 1600s and also a favorite writer of C.S. Lewis. Thomas Thaherne writes:
Love can forbear and Love can forgive…but Love can NEVER be reconciled to an unlovely object...He therefore, can never be reconciled to your sin, because sin cannot be altered; but he may be reconciled to your person, because that my be restored.
There we have it people. Because God cannot reconcile to Sin and because of man’s EGO (Which really stands for Edging God Out), the relationship between man and God was broken. Thankfully, there is a remedy and path for reconciliation.
Did you catch that part within the quote that says “God me be reconciled to the Person, because that may be restored”? And we know that we can only be restored through our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to become restored because of the ultimate Christmas gift God gave to us, Jesus Christ. We now have a pathway for reconciliation with God. Sure, the relationship is not like the one Adam and Eve initially had with God, but we have a secured hope in the end, that when we join the father, we will again see Him and live again in complete harmony with the mighty creator, spending eternity basking in His glory and worshiping Him.
On a side note, I want to address some poor theology and that is that some people believe that God sent Jesus as a plan “B” because mankind was a failed experiment. That we messed things up so bad, that God had to revise His game plan, which is absolutely not true. God knew all along how all of this was going to play out. This is His story. He has written it from beginning to end. He is omnipresent. He was in the beginning and in the end. He knew what He was doing and it was always part of the plan. And what is so mind-blowing, and humbling is that God has written each of us into His story. There is a problem though, and that is we are constantly trying to highjack His story and make it our own story, were we become the main character and that it’s all about us.
EGO. (Edging God out).
As we go back to the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that son eventually lost everything. I imagine he had a hole in his heart the whole time he had departed from his Father, which he tried harder and harder to fill with fleshly desires. And then he hit rock bottom, and he hit it hard. We can all relate to being hungry, but I can’t say I have ever been so hungry that I longed to eat the pig slop. With no more money to spend on things that would temporarily numb his emptiness, let along feed himself, he decided to humbled himself and returned to his father, asking for forgiveness and to give him a job as a servant. And we read that “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” And “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
Reconciliation… what was once broken has been fixed; restored and placed back into harmony.
Now, there is a little bit more to the idea of reconciliation and we read about it in
2nd Corinthians 5:18-19:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
I am sure you are wondering, what does the Prodigal Son have to do with Christmas, and I would say everything!
Let me start by saying the story of the Prodigal son is a special one because its one of those 3 for 1 deals. With one story, you get three applications. We see that there are three characters, the father, son, and a brother and with each character, there is an application. We see a story of the son’s EGO, life of sin, and then repentance. We see the father’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace. Then there is the brother’s who is angry and jealous that the father has so readily taken back the brother. Tonight, we are going to look at the story of reconciliation between the son and the father. And that’s why this story is important to Christmas. It’s a beautiful story of reconciliation and of a metaphor or parable of God the father, and mankind, which includes all of us.
My favorite Christmas song is Hark the herald Angle Sing, because of the line, “ God and sinners reconcile.”
It’s that line right there that is the good news we proclaim as Christians.
Lets look at the word reconcile for a moment.
The word reconcile means a couple of different things.
The dictionary defines reconcile as “case to co-exist in harmony; make or show to be compatible or to no longer appose.”
Try this definition on for size. How about “ to fix what is broke…”
So what’s broke? Well in the story we just read, we see that the father and son’s relationship has broke. So you understand how serious of a deal this was, let me explain some of the context. This isn’t a story of a son asking his dad for 100 bucks and staying gone all weekend. This is so much bigger than that. When the son asked his father for his inheritance in advanced, be basically wished his father dead. You are dead to me, so give me what I have coming is pretty much what the actions of the son spoke here. The son has shown complete disrespect, selfishness, and greed. We see first hand through the story what self-will run riot looks like. Surprisingly, the father grants the son his request and gives him his inheritance, then the son leaves. And what does he do with his money; he spent it on “wild living”.
By today’s standards of wild living, I think of Tiger Woods. Think of everything we learned about Tiger this last year and his escapades, and I think that Tiger’s once secret lifestyle is not too different from the Son’s.
During the course of time that the son was out living life in the fast lane, boozing, and eating at all of the best restaurants, chasing women, and gambling, he has no contact with his father. Why should he? He wished his father dead so that he could take his inheritance. The relationship that once was is not completely broken.
Let me pause there for a second and point out another relationship that was broken and that story is in Genesis chapter 3. See, after God made earth, and all of the animals and mankind, Adam and Eve, he said it was Very good. And He had a relationship with Adam and Eve and would walk amongst them in the garden. They had a direct line to the Creator. They had a perfect relationship with God. They were in harmony with God and did not appose Him, that was until the serpent shows up on the scene. And we know, as the story goes, Eve eats from the tree and then has Adam eat, and immediately their relationship with God was forever changed. They were once naked and unashamed, but now, they run and hide and cover themselves. Of course, God is not happy about this, and because God is pure and holy he cannot be in a relationship with sin. Which is what Adam and Eve brought upon themselves.
The bible tells us that God is a loving and kind; however, he is also just and in Him there is no darkness. 1st John 4:8 reads God is Love, with that in mind, let me read you a quote from a Thomas Thaherne, a priest and private Chaplin, in the later part of the 1600s and also a favorite writer of C.S. Lewis. Thomas Thaherne writes:
Love can forbear and Love can forgive…but Love can NEVER be reconciled to an unlovely object...He therefore, can never be reconciled to your sin, because sin cannot be altered; but he may be reconciled to your person, because that my be restored.
There we have it people. Because God cannot reconcile to Sin and because of man’s EGO (Which really stands for Edging God Out), the relationship between man and God was broken. Thankfully, there is a remedy and path for reconciliation.
Did you catch that part within the quote that says “God me be reconciled to the Person, because that may be restored”? And we know that we can only be restored through our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to become restored because of the ultimate Christmas gift God gave to us, Jesus Christ. We now have a pathway for reconciliation with God. Sure, the relationship is not like the one Adam and Eve initially had with God, but we have a secured hope in the end, that when we join the father, we will again see Him and live again in complete harmony with the mighty creator, spending eternity basking in His glory and worshiping Him.
On a side note, I want to address some poor theology and that is that some people believe that God sent Jesus as a plan “B” because mankind was a failed experiment. That we messed things up so bad, that God had to revise His game plan, which is absolutely not true. God knew all along how all of this was going to play out. This is His story. He has written it from beginning to end. He is omnipresent. He was in the beginning and in the end. He knew what He was doing and it was always part of the plan. And what is so mind-blowing, and humbling is that God has written each of us into His story. There is a problem though, and that is we are constantly trying to highjack His story and make it our own story, were we become the main character and that it’s all about us.
EGO. (Edging God out).
As we go back to the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that son eventually lost everything. I imagine he had a hole in his heart the whole time he had departed from his Father, which he tried harder and harder to fill with fleshly desires. And then he hit rock bottom, and he hit it hard. We can all relate to being hungry, but I can’t say I have ever been so hungry that I longed to eat the pig slop. With no more money to spend on things that would temporarily numb his emptiness, let along feed himself, he decided to humbled himself and returned to his father, asking for forgiveness and to give him a job as a servant. And we read that “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” And “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
Reconciliation… what was once broken has been fixed; restored and placed back into harmony.
Now, there is a little bit more to the idea of reconciliation and we read about it in
2nd Corinthians 5:18-19:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
Friday, December 10, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to preach a sermon at our church. I thought I would share with those who were not there my sermon in written text.
Scripture reading:
Romans Chapter 8: 1-13 (print in bulletin)
Well, you guys are stuck with me tonight…
I am a little nervous, so forgive me if I miss speak or stutter, or use the umm 100 times. There are a few things about preaching that I know I wont be able to do tonight. One thing that is discouraged when preaching is not to hide behind the podium, they encouraged to speaker to move round. That’s not happening, I am staying right here! I need somewhere to duck if you guys start throwing things. The other thing is to make lots of eye contact, but I fully intend on referring and reading from my notes most of the time tonight. That is not a skill I have yet developed. They also say that when you are nervous to picture the audience nude…I wont do that…
Let me share really quick how this all came about. A few weeks ago, Pastor Patrick called me and asked me if I would be willing to let him mentor me in the field of preaching, because it was his hope that I could fill in for him from time to time, and I accepted his invitation, not thinking it would be this soon, without any mentoring. How selfish of him to go out and have a heart attack without giving me any mentoring time. But God is good. We are grateful that our Pastor is on the road to recovery and I believe he will be released tomorrow. Also, another testimony of how good God is, on Monday an idea was laid upon my heart, which I wanted to write about on my blog. I even figured that this idea might be a good sermon topic in the future. Well that future is tonight.
So let me jump right into it.
Mark 8: 34-35
Jesus is quoted as saying:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his own life, shall lose it; BUT whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall save it.”
For those who wish to save their own live, they shall lose it; but those who lose their life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it… How can we lose something for the purpose to saving it?
Sayings like that don’t make much sense in the world we live in. This is counter to everything that our culture, society, TV, Hollywood, and the media are telling us.
We have all heard similar sayings like; “you have to surrender to win”, “ You must die to truly live”, and “there is no life without death”.
None of this would make any sense in the earthly realm of the world, it just doesn’t compute; however, it makes perfect sense in the Kingdom of God. That’s why we call it the upside down Kingdom. The rules in the secular world do not apply in God’s Kingdom. It’s a place that those who are last are first, those who lead do so by serving, and those who lose their life will find it.
So what is it that Jesus is saying here? “For whoever loses his life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it…Obvious, for most of the twelve disciples, losing one’s life was literal in the sense of martyrism. Maybe, what Jesus was saying went beyond the literal sense. Obviously, we are not all called to be martyrs, but we are all called to follow Him, so what is it exactly He is saying here?
Perhaps, what He is saying is that in order to follow him, we need to put Him before us; to put away our selfish wants and desires and pursue His will; to stop pursuing a life of self, but instead pursue the life of Christ; to be Christ-centered rather than self-centered.
For more clarification, lets look at our scripture reading, Romans, Chapter 8, verses 1-13, the Apostle Paul writes:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
There is it right there, “Righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, WHO DO NOT LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT.
So what does it look like to NOT live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit?
Paul continues:
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
Through reading this scripture, we know that a life according to the spirit is a Christ-centered life and is of peace. PEACE… Have you guys ever seen the bummer sticker that reads No Jesus No Peace, Know Jesus Know Peace? Very true…
Paul elaborates in his letter to the church of Galatia what the two lives entail.
(Flesh lead life VS the Spirit lead life). In Galatians Chapter 5 verse 16-26, he describes the characteristics of the conflicting lives.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
We have come to believe that our Father in heaven, who is gracious, and patient, sent His son, Jesus Christ to earth, to live a sinless life, all a long taking on the flesh of sinful man, and who was temped in everyway, but kept the law to the fullest, and died on our behalf as an atonement for our sins. Jesus was the great sacrifice. Through his death and resurrections, we have an opportunity to really live. We have a choice; we can live our lives like the walking dead, like Zombies; enslaved to our sinful natures. We can live in a kingdom where we make ourselves the king and place our fleshly desires over everything, and or everyone, OR we can make Him, Jesus, the rightful king, and take up the life of the spirit, wherein we live in peace, joy, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.
The Bible tells us in Philippians Chapter 2, verse 12 “Continue to work out your salvation.”
See, the moment that we accept Jesus as our Savior, we enter into a life with Him, and as we read earlier, in the beginning of Romans Chapter 8, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Jesus paid our debt and forgave us for our sinful nature. However, that does not mean that our sinful nature disappears immediately, though I wish it would... We still struggle with our sinful nature. We battle against it. We just read that the two natures are in constant conflict with each other. We are constantly trying to push out our self-center ways and replace it with a Christ-center life. But how quick do we return to our SOP? Standard Operational Procedure, which is the sinful nature of the flesh.
I remember once, a few years back I was driving home from work. While I was driving, I was fully enjoying a time of Worship, singing from the top of lungs to God. In a matter of a split second, I went from singing praises to our God, to cursing the driver who had just cut me off. I went form love, joy and gentleness to hatred, discord and a fit of rage in a blink of an eye.
Back to the Apostle Paul…, he said it best when he wrote in Romans Chapter 7, Verse 19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing”…
Can anyone relate?
Lets get real here. Do I have your permission to get real? I mean this is a church where no perfect people are allowed right? So you all should be able to relate to what I am about to say…
I sin… I sin all the time. And just like Paul, I don’t always do the good things I want to, but instead do the evil things I do not want to do. We all do. Though our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak…
Let me also share this with you. Most of you don’t know this, but I am an alcoholic.
Remember the list of characteristics of the flesh, drunkenness is one of them and for years, I was drunk every single night. I was likely an alcoholic before I became a Christian. The first time I ever stepped into a church on my own free will as an adult was after a night of drinking, in which I blacked out. I don’t recall how I got home that night. I don’t know what the date was, other than it was a Sunday morning in July, but I do know that it was the beginning steps of my soon to come relationship with Jesus Christ. I accepted Christ as my Savior within a couple of weeks, and initially I stopped drinking. But in less than a year, that fleshly desire worked itself back into my life. Though I didn’t return to the bars, I did return to the bottle and slowly it began to take a hold of me again. It really developed into a stronghold for me. In the beginning it didn’t seem like a big deal to drink two or three glass of wine from time to time. But once a month turned into once a couple of weeks, which lead into a couple of times a week and in the end, every day. It didn’t seem that big of deal drink three or four beers a night. And over the course of seven years, my alcohol consumption grew and grew. I justified my drinking by telling myself that I have a stressful job and deserve it. That it’s ok to drink at home, every night…its ok, because I am not out driving. It’s ok because I am not cheating on my wife. I pay my bills. I work hard and so on and so forth…I would also say that I had a freedom in Christ to drink alcohol. But the bible is very clear about what God thinks about those who get drunk. He’s not talking about enjoying a beverage, kicking back having a beer while watching the game. He addresses drunkenness and says the man who is drunk is a fool. Drunkenness is foolish and I had become a fool.
And then it started to go down hill for me. I started living in secrecy, because I didn’t want people to find out how much I was drinking. And for those of you that knew that we use to attend this church years ago and abruptly stopped attending, this is why. I was tired of living a lie. I was tired of pretending. I was tired of wearing a mask. I made Alcohol an idle and that had become more of a priority than my church attendance, my friendships, my marriage, my children and my walk with Christ. For years, I tried to control it. I tried drinking only on weekends. I tried fasting for 40 days, which I just ended up drinking a lot of non-alcohol beer. A lot! Not to mention, I was beyond irritable for 40 days. I even once tried taking sleeping pills. I had this idea, that if I took some sleeping pills early in the evening, I could just fall asleep at about 6pm and sleep through my hours of temptations. Though I wanted to stop drinking and getting drunk on an everyday basis, I was unwilling to let go to that fleshly desire. I so badly wanted to hold onto it.
I beat myself up for years over my addiction. I lost all peace and serenity in my life because the two natures where in conflict with each other. My flesh desired drunkenness, but the Spirit within me desired something all together different and better. I was in constant turmoil.
Then, on July 7, 2008, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I finally became willing to give it all up. That night I prayed whole heartily a drunken prayer. I asked God with complete sincerity to make me sick of drinking. I asked Jesus to make me so sick that I wont want to drink anymore. Then, I staggered to my bedroom, snuck into bed not to awake my wife and passed out, which was no different than all the previous nights over the last seven years, except this night was different. God answered my prayer.
A few hours later I woke up with the chills and began throwing up. I threw up all six beers and the bottle of wine I had drank, plus dinner, and maybe a kidney. I am not too sure.
The next morning, as I laid in bed I realized that God had answered my prayer. I wasn’t hung over; this was different. I had drank no more than my normal amount, I had some sort of flue and I had it bad. I knew in my heart that this sudden sickness was divinely given. Be careful for what you ask for, you might just get it. I can tell you what happens in our household when one of us gets sick; it’s just a matter of a few days when the rest of the household starts to fall ill. Not this time. It was just me…
By surrendering, I won. I let go of something that was keeping me in bondage. A life in bondage is not what Christ desires for us. He came to set us free! But how can we be free when we refuse to let go of those fleshly things that keep us in bondage? Where is the freedom when you live according to the Flesh? I can tell you first hand there is absolutely NO FREEDOM in addiction. If you are a gossiper, are you not enslaved to the fear of people finding out what you said about them behind their back? If you are quick tempered, are you not ruled by your irrational emotions? If you are filled with jealousy, are you not owned by insecurities?
Let me add, that my recovery and healing from alcoholism did not end there. I had my work cut out to me. I had to swallow a lot of pride and seek recovery. And because of our gracious and patient God, and his answered prayer, along with the program of AA, I can proudly tell you have almost two and half years of sobriety. I can tell you that by letting go and surrendering, I did in fact win. I won my life back; my marriage back; and my walk and relationship with Christ has grown beyond measure. I have learned to cope, trust and rely on God in a whole new way and have become a better follower of Jesus, a better husband, father, friend, employee and person.
We have a saying in AA, in exchange for the bottle; I was given the keys to the kingdom.
I once heard a story from a missionary, wherein he said that the natives in the jungle would catch monkeys with a special trap. The trap involves a hollow coconut, chained to a stake and baited with food, like peanuts. It has a hole large enough for the monkey to put its hand into, but too small to remove its hand while holding the bait. The monkey needs only to let go to escape, but gets caught because it refuses to let go in its panic to keep its precious find.
Can you relate? For the monkey, and me, by refusing to let go, we were facing certain death.
Funny, we being the so called evolved primates say to ourselves, stupid little monkeys, yet we do the exact same thing…
So really, what’s my point? I would say that it that this whole following Christ thing, is a work in progress. I know you are not the same Christian you are today as you were a year ago; maybe even 6 months ago. I know I am not. And I am confident; that we are not going to be the same Christians we are tonight, a year from now. Our goal is to grow in Christ. Its not about spiritual perfection, that is impossible, but it is about spiritual progress. We don’t want to stall out in our walk with Christ.
I will say, there are seasons to faith. And some seasons feel like spring, your alive, full of color, fruitful, and joyous and there are other seasons where you feel like winter, cold, dormant, dry, and perhaps, foggy, like our valley winters. I know first hand what the winter feels like. I spiritually lived there for years and it got colder and colder, but Jesus never gave up on me and he will never give up on you! He worked on my heart and redeemed and me again. And now, I have a testimony for his glory!
This is not a one-time thing people. Yes God has forgiven us of our sins! Yes, Jesus died on the cross as an atonement for our sins. And Yes, God is full of grace, but “are we to continue sinning so that grace may increase? May it be never! How are we who are supposed to be dead to sin, continue to live in it?” Romans 6: 1-2
We are His clay, and God is the great sculptor. He is continually sculpting us making us more and more like Him. And he sculpts, molds, and refines us by speaking to our hearts. You know this because you have heard him. You have heard his whisper.
There are areas in each one of our lives that are still ruled by the flesh and God desires us to change those areas because they are not healthy. He doesn’t want us living in shame, guilt, bondage, addictions and or isolation, but that is exactly what we feel when we live in the flesh.
Let me ask you tonight, what are you holding on to? Pastor Patrick shared last week about the nets we drag and all of the muck those nets pick up and he encouraged us to drop those nets. In a way I am making the same plea, what are you still holding onto that you know you ought to let go? Invite Christ into that area and surrender it to Him and you wont be disappointed.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, you can have one. Starting right now! All you have to do is ask Jesus into you Heart. Pray to Him, acknowledging and confessing your sins to Him. Believe that He was perfect and sinless and that he died on the cross for your sins; so that you could be forgiven and enter into eternity with the Father. Believe that He rose from the grave after three days and defeated death. Surrender your will to His.
Lets pray…
Father, thank you for your loving kindness and patience. Thank you for laying your life down for us, so that we may live and have enteral life with you. Jesus, thank you for modeling what our lives should look like. We acknowledge that you desire us to live lives free of bondage and perpetual sin, which just cultivates and produces despair, grief, drama, heart ache, sadness and loneliness. Lord, speak to each of our hearts, may Your light shine on the dark areas of our lives and please give us the courage to make the necessary changes. Help us let go of the things that are killing us spiritually and physically. We ask this in Your name Jesus, AMEN.
Scripture reading:
Romans Chapter 8: 1-13 (print in bulletin)
Well, you guys are stuck with me tonight…
I am a little nervous, so forgive me if I miss speak or stutter, or use the umm 100 times. There are a few things about preaching that I know I wont be able to do tonight. One thing that is discouraged when preaching is not to hide behind the podium, they encouraged to speaker to move round. That’s not happening, I am staying right here! I need somewhere to duck if you guys start throwing things. The other thing is to make lots of eye contact, but I fully intend on referring and reading from my notes most of the time tonight. That is not a skill I have yet developed. They also say that when you are nervous to picture the audience nude…I wont do that…
Let me share really quick how this all came about. A few weeks ago, Pastor Patrick called me and asked me if I would be willing to let him mentor me in the field of preaching, because it was his hope that I could fill in for him from time to time, and I accepted his invitation, not thinking it would be this soon, without any mentoring. How selfish of him to go out and have a heart attack without giving me any mentoring time. But God is good. We are grateful that our Pastor is on the road to recovery and I believe he will be released tomorrow. Also, another testimony of how good God is, on Monday an idea was laid upon my heart, which I wanted to write about on my blog. I even figured that this idea might be a good sermon topic in the future. Well that future is tonight.
So let me jump right into it.
Mark 8: 34-35
Jesus is quoted as saying:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his own life, shall lose it; BUT whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall save it.”
For those who wish to save their own live, they shall lose it; but those who lose their life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it… How can we lose something for the purpose to saving it?
Sayings like that don’t make much sense in the world we live in. This is counter to everything that our culture, society, TV, Hollywood, and the media are telling us.
We have all heard similar sayings like; “you have to surrender to win”, “ You must die to truly live”, and “there is no life without death”.
None of this would make any sense in the earthly realm of the world, it just doesn’t compute; however, it makes perfect sense in the Kingdom of God. That’s why we call it the upside down Kingdom. The rules in the secular world do not apply in God’s Kingdom. It’s a place that those who are last are first, those who lead do so by serving, and those who lose their life will find it.
So what is it that Jesus is saying here? “For whoever loses his life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it…Obvious, for most of the twelve disciples, losing one’s life was literal in the sense of martyrism. Maybe, what Jesus was saying went beyond the literal sense. Obviously, we are not all called to be martyrs, but we are all called to follow Him, so what is it exactly He is saying here?
Perhaps, what He is saying is that in order to follow him, we need to put Him before us; to put away our selfish wants and desires and pursue His will; to stop pursuing a life of self, but instead pursue the life of Christ; to be Christ-centered rather than self-centered.
For more clarification, lets look at our scripture reading, Romans, Chapter 8, verses 1-13, the Apostle Paul writes:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
There is it right there, “Righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, WHO DO NOT LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT.
So what does it look like to NOT live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit?
Paul continues:
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
Through reading this scripture, we know that a life according to the spirit is a Christ-centered life and is of peace. PEACE… Have you guys ever seen the bummer sticker that reads No Jesus No Peace, Know Jesus Know Peace? Very true…
Paul elaborates in his letter to the church of Galatia what the two lives entail.
(Flesh lead life VS the Spirit lead life). In Galatians Chapter 5 verse 16-26, he describes the characteristics of the conflicting lives.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
We have come to believe that our Father in heaven, who is gracious, and patient, sent His son, Jesus Christ to earth, to live a sinless life, all a long taking on the flesh of sinful man, and who was temped in everyway, but kept the law to the fullest, and died on our behalf as an atonement for our sins. Jesus was the great sacrifice. Through his death and resurrections, we have an opportunity to really live. We have a choice; we can live our lives like the walking dead, like Zombies; enslaved to our sinful natures. We can live in a kingdom where we make ourselves the king and place our fleshly desires over everything, and or everyone, OR we can make Him, Jesus, the rightful king, and take up the life of the spirit, wherein we live in peace, joy, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.
The Bible tells us in Philippians Chapter 2, verse 12 “Continue to work out your salvation.”
See, the moment that we accept Jesus as our Savior, we enter into a life with Him, and as we read earlier, in the beginning of Romans Chapter 8, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Jesus paid our debt and forgave us for our sinful nature. However, that does not mean that our sinful nature disappears immediately, though I wish it would... We still struggle with our sinful nature. We battle against it. We just read that the two natures are in constant conflict with each other. We are constantly trying to push out our self-center ways and replace it with a Christ-center life. But how quick do we return to our SOP? Standard Operational Procedure, which is the sinful nature of the flesh.
I remember once, a few years back I was driving home from work. While I was driving, I was fully enjoying a time of Worship, singing from the top of lungs to God. In a matter of a split second, I went from singing praises to our God, to cursing the driver who had just cut me off. I went form love, joy and gentleness to hatred, discord and a fit of rage in a blink of an eye.
Back to the Apostle Paul…, he said it best when he wrote in Romans Chapter 7, Verse 19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing”…
Can anyone relate?
Lets get real here. Do I have your permission to get real? I mean this is a church where no perfect people are allowed right? So you all should be able to relate to what I am about to say…
I sin… I sin all the time. And just like Paul, I don’t always do the good things I want to, but instead do the evil things I do not want to do. We all do. Though our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak…
Let me also share this with you. Most of you don’t know this, but I am an alcoholic.
Remember the list of characteristics of the flesh, drunkenness is one of them and for years, I was drunk every single night. I was likely an alcoholic before I became a Christian. The first time I ever stepped into a church on my own free will as an adult was after a night of drinking, in which I blacked out. I don’t recall how I got home that night. I don’t know what the date was, other than it was a Sunday morning in July, but I do know that it was the beginning steps of my soon to come relationship with Jesus Christ. I accepted Christ as my Savior within a couple of weeks, and initially I stopped drinking. But in less than a year, that fleshly desire worked itself back into my life. Though I didn’t return to the bars, I did return to the bottle and slowly it began to take a hold of me again. It really developed into a stronghold for me. In the beginning it didn’t seem like a big deal to drink two or three glass of wine from time to time. But once a month turned into once a couple of weeks, which lead into a couple of times a week and in the end, every day. It didn’t seem that big of deal drink three or four beers a night. And over the course of seven years, my alcohol consumption grew and grew. I justified my drinking by telling myself that I have a stressful job and deserve it. That it’s ok to drink at home, every night…its ok, because I am not out driving. It’s ok because I am not cheating on my wife. I pay my bills. I work hard and so on and so forth…I would also say that I had a freedom in Christ to drink alcohol. But the bible is very clear about what God thinks about those who get drunk. He’s not talking about enjoying a beverage, kicking back having a beer while watching the game. He addresses drunkenness and says the man who is drunk is a fool. Drunkenness is foolish and I had become a fool.
And then it started to go down hill for me. I started living in secrecy, because I didn’t want people to find out how much I was drinking. And for those of you that knew that we use to attend this church years ago and abruptly stopped attending, this is why. I was tired of living a lie. I was tired of pretending. I was tired of wearing a mask. I made Alcohol an idle and that had become more of a priority than my church attendance, my friendships, my marriage, my children and my walk with Christ. For years, I tried to control it. I tried drinking only on weekends. I tried fasting for 40 days, which I just ended up drinking a lot of non-alcohol beer. A lot! Not to mention, I was beyond irritable for 40 days. I even once tried taking sleeping pills. I had this idea, that if I took some sleeping pills early in the evening, I could just fall asleep at about 6pm and sleep through my hours of temptations. Though I wanted to stop drinking and getting drunk on an everyday basis, I was unwilling to let go to that fleshly desire. I so badly wanted to hold onto it.
I beat myself up for years over my addiction. I lost all peace and serenity in my life because the two natures where in conflict with each other. My flesh desired drunkenness, but the Spirit within me desired something all together different and better. I was in constant turmoil.
Then, on July 7, 2008, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I finally became willing to give it all up. That night I prayed whole heartily a drunken prayer. I asked God with complete sincerity to make me sick of drinking. I asked Jesus to make me so sick that I wont want to drink anymore. Then, I staggered to my bedroom, snuck into bed not to awake my wife and passed out, which was no different than all the previous nights over the last seven years, except this night was different. God answered my prayer.
A few hours later I woke up with the chills and began throwing up. I threw up all six beers and the bottle of wine I had drank, plus dinner, and maybe a kidney. I am not too sure.
The next morning, as I laid in bed I realized that God had answered my prayer. I wasn’t hung over; this was different. I had drank no more than my normal amount, I had some sort of flue and I had it bad. I knew in my heart that this sudden sickness was divinely given. Be careful for what you ask for, you might just get it. I can tell you what happens in our household when one of us gets sick; it’s just a matter of a few days when the rest of the household starts to fall ill. Not this time. It was just me…
By surrendering, I won. I let go of something that was keeping me in bondage. A life in bondage is not what Christ desires for us. He came to set us free! But how can we be free when we refuse to let go of those fleshly things that keep us in bondage? Where is the freedom when you live according to the Flesh? I can tell you first hand there is absolutely NO FREEDOM in addiction. If you are a gossiper, are you not enslaved to the fear of people finding out what you said about them behind their back? If you are quick tempered, are you not ruled by your irrational emotions? If you are filled with jealousy, are you not owned by insecurities?
Let me add, that my recovery and healing from alcoholism did not end there. I had my work cut out to me. I had to swallow a lot of pride and seek recovery. And because of our gracious and patient God, and his answered prayer, along with the program of AA, I can proudly tell you have almost two and half years of sobriety. I can tell you that by letting go and surrendering, I did in fact win. I won my life back; my marriage back; and my walk and relationship with Christ has grown beyond measure. I have learned to cope, trust and rely on God in a whole new way and have become a better follower of Jesus, a better husband, father, friend, employee and person.
We have a saying in AA, in exchange for the bottle; I was given the keys to the kingdom.
I once heard a story from a missionary, wherein he said that the natives in the jungle would catch monkeys with a special trap. The trap involves a hollow coconut, chained to a stake and baited with food, like peanuts. It has a hole large enough for the monkey to put its hand into, but too small to remove its hand while holding the bait. The monkey needs only to let go to escape, but gets caught because it refuses to let go in its panic to keep its precious find.
Can you relate? For the monkey, and me, by refusing to let go, we were facing certain death.
Funny, we being the so called evolved primates say to ourselves, stupid little monkeys, yet we do the exact same thing…
So really, what’s my point? I would say that it that this whole following Christ thing, is a work in progress. I know you are not the same Christian you are today as you were a year ago; maybe even 6 months ago. I know I am not. And I am confident; that we are not going to be the same Christians we are tonight, a year from now. Our goal is to grow in Christ. Its not about spiritual perfection, that is impossible, but it is about spiritual progress. We don’t want to stall out in our walk with Christ.
I will say, there are seasons to faith. And some seasons feel like spring, your alive, full of color, fruitful, and joyous and there are other seasons where you feel like winter, cold, dormant, dry, and perhaps, foggy, like our valley winters. I know first hand what the winter feels like. I spiritually lived there for years and it got colder and colder, but Jesus never gave up on me and he will never give up on you! He worked on my heart and redeemed and me again. And now, I have a testimony for his glory!
This is not a one-time thing people. Yes God has forgiven us of our sins! Yes, Jesus died on the cross as an atonement for our sins. And Yes, God is full of grace, but “are we to continue sinning so that grace may increase? May it be never! How are we who are supposed to be dead to sin, continue to live in it?” Romans 6: 1-2
We are His clay, and God is the great sculptor. He is continually sculpting us making us more and more like Him. And he sculpts, molds, and refines us by speaking to our hearts. You know this because you have heard him. You have heard his whisper.
There are areas in each one of our lives that are still ruled by the flesh and God desires us to change those areas because they are not healthy. He doesn’t want us living in shame, guilt, bondage, addictions and or isolation, but that is exactly what we feel when we live in the flesh.
Let me ask you tonight, what are you holding on to? Pastor Patrick shared last week about the nets we drag and all of the muck those nets pick up and he encouraged us to drop those nets. In a way I am making the same plea, what are you still holding onto that you know you ought to let go? Invite Christ into that area and surrender it to Him and you wont be disappointed.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, you can have one. Starting right now! All you have to do is ask Jesus into you Heart. Pray to Him, acknowledging and confessing your sins to Him. Believe that He was perfect and sinless and that he died on the cross for your sins; so that you could be forgiven and enter into eternity with the Father. Believe that He rose from the grave after three days and defeated death. Surrender your will to His.
Lets pray…
Father, thank you for your loving kindness and patience. Thank you for laying your life down for us, so that we may live and have enteral life with you. Jesus, thank you for modeling what our lives should look like. We acknowledge that you desire us to live lives free of bondage and perpetual sin, which just cultivates and produces despair, grief, drama, heart ache, sadness and loneliness. Lord, speak to each of our hearts, may Your light shine on the dark areas of our lives and please give us the courage to make the necessary changes. Help us let go of the things that are killing us spiritually and physically. We ask this in Your name Jesus, AMEN.
