 Rev. Matthew J. Hook |
So,
What's New?
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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At this time of the year, I think about what might have been last year. Where I might have been had I not quit working out. Had I quit eating! Had I been more faithful in my personal time on a daily basis. I also think of what could be new this year, and how exciting that is. Sometimes I write down goals, or what some might refer to as resolutions. In my devotions, I came across a list of resolutions by a Christian teenager:
Sometimes we
Christians need to set some goals. We need the reminder that
Paul gives the church in Ephesus for us to claim the new life
Christ offers us and has given us. I like the time between
Christmas and New Year’s because it gives us the opportunity
to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the new one. As
such, we live as Christians. I want to look at this passage in
depth today as we think about this new year. Maybe you had a
rough year and you are looking for help. Maybe you had a good
year. With the Lord as our guide, we can expect them to get
even better. Whether it was good, or bad, we should not let
yesterday rob us of tomorrow. Paul seems to be sounding a bit judgmental. He almost sounds condemning. But I think of it in terms of the attitude that my recovering friends have. They would tell another recovering alcoholic, "Don’t live like the rest of the drinkers do, in the futility of their minds." If you have had someone who is recovering share with you, you know they aren’t condemning those who are still living the lifestyle. Because they know that "but for the grace of God, that would be them." At the same time, they don’t want to go back. Those who have only lived cannot see what those who have died and now live can see. For those who have seen, it is futile to go back. Yet we do, don’t we? But we don’t have to. We can be free of the old life in the way someone recovering can—one day at a time. There is a better way. A better year is waiting for us. But to get to there from here we need to claim the better way: Jesus’ way. We need to be bold. Remember God’s message to the church of Laodicea: "Because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:16) We’ve got to remember, there is only one way the puzzle of life will fit together, and that’s God’s way. Paul already says what happens when we go back to our old ways. We aren’t punished by God. We are simply alienated or excluded from the life of God. We alienate ourselves when we hang on to attitudes and behaviors and thinking that dwells in sin and dwells on the negative. After all, the blame and shame of yesterday will bury us if we don’t bury them. We are to say "yes" to God. We are to say "yes" to good things. We shouldn’t exclude ourselves from good things. That’s why Paul reminds us that when we allow ourselves to fall into those old modes of operating, we effectively exclude ourselves from much of the goodness that God has waiting for us. God wants us to experience his goodness. That’s just having good boundaries. Our boundaries are like our skin. It is designed to keep the good stuff in, and the bad stuff out. God wants us to have good boundaries. God wants us to receive good things in our lives, as much as He wants us to bury the bad things in our lives. And I trust you know I’m not necessarily thinking of things. "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated (excluded) from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart." Hardness of heart is something I fear. I don’t want to become callous to what God has for me. When we allow ourselves to go back to the way we were, we can lose all sensitivity and become callous. That’s like experiencing death before life is over. It is what the Greek gods were known for. The word apathy was seen as a virtue. To be unaffected and above it all. And yet when we become above it all we become dead to life. Dead to the hurting and the noise and the life and the living and the good things as well. The writer of Hebrews talks about this in much of the book of Hebrews. In 3:13, he says, "Encourage one another daily while it is still called today, lest your hearts be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Sin is out to deceive us, and when we fall for it enough, we become callous. "They are darkened in their understanding…and have abandoned themselves to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. That is not the way you learned Christ!" Look who you abandon when you follow the old attitudes into the old habits. Paul writes, "They have…abandoned themselves." You are less than God’s best for your life when you abandon yourself. You give up a piece of your soul when you lose yourself to sensuality and impurity. And then there’s a continual lust for more! Why do we abandon the new life in Christ for our old ways of yesteryear? Because most of us prefer the hell of a predictable situation rather than risk the joy of an unpredictable one. It’s our fallen, sinful human nature. Old habits die hard. We need to bury them. We need to trust that God’s strength is sufficient for us. Sufficient for making it through one day without sin. God gives enough of his Holy Spirit in our lives, enough of his grace to make it through one day without sinning. There are so many issues in life that would be settled, that would not drain us of the energy involved in decision making, if we would settle once and for all who we are and whose we are. When we say a solid "yes" to God, we are given discernment as to what we should say "no" to and the power to say it. And then our "no" to those things becomes a "yes" to God. "For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts…" There is a line drawn in the sand, only instead of sand Paul is calling us to draw a line in cement and step over it. Put away your former life. Put away your old self. Sometimes I picture my old former life like a dead Siamese twin; like a corpse that I choose to carry around with me. I go here, I pick it up. I go there, I pick it up and drag it along with me. That’s the old self Paul is calling us to let go of, that Jesus has saved us from, that he has called us away from. And it’s rank. It stinks! And we need to let it go. I think I do it because, as Paul says, we become deluded by the former life’s lusts. To be "deluded by our lusts" is such a common phenomenon. There are entire industries built on nothing but supporting the delusions of our lusts. We need constant input from God’s Word to help us discern what is of the world in that way. What is nothing but a delusion coming out of our lusts? "…and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Be renewed in the spirit of your minds. I believe the spirit of your mind is your attitude. And attitude makes all the difference. According to Chuck Swindoll, 90% of life is attitude, and the rest is how we respond to the other 10%. The spirit of your minds is that attitude and the new attitude that Christ calls us to. Clothe yourself with the new self. Put on Christ. I often tell the high school students that if the class if really boring, and you’re really having a difficult time in it, pretend that you like it. Pretend that you like biology. Pretend that you’re really interested in trigonometry. But if you "trick" yourself into pretending that you’re interested in it, what happens? It becomes easier. You actually become interested in it. When Paul asks us to "clothe ourselves," we are putting on Christ, we are pretending, we’re playing dress up, and we’re moving in the direction God wants us to move. We’ve been created according to the likeness of God when we step into our new selves. We are reclaiming what we lost when Adam and Eve sinned. And we are recreated in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Righteousness is nothing more than being in right relationship with God. Choosing to be in a relationship with God. Agreeing with God. And holiness means being set apart. Holiness means realizing that we are good enough to let ourselves be set apart from the dead Siamese twin. To let ourselves be set apart from the former lives that we have led. To let ourselves be set apart from sin. To be claimed and embraced by the living God through his Son Jesus. Clothe yourselves with the new self. Who is the new self? Jesus Christ. Paul writes to the Galatians: "Christ in you." When we put our faith in Christ, he enters into our lives in a new way. We do nothing the rest of our lives but try to conform to that life that is already within us and grow into his likeness. How do people come to know who Jesus Christ is? They see him in you. "If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17) Remember, in the beginning we were made in God’s image. Because God has forgiven us and raised us, we are born again, to be obedient in thought, word, attitude and action to Christ. Let us make a resolution to turn from the old, and put on the new, realizing that we will experience God in a new and wonderful and powerful way. We don’t choose to live in defeat, but we live so that we will be renewed in the spirit of our minds, clothed in Christ, and re-created in the likeness of God. May righteousness and holiness reflect his love throughout this year! Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for your servant Paul and his letter to the Ephesians. We thank you that you have called us away from the old self with all its former sins and desires and lusts and futility. We know that there is but one way to solve the puzzle of life, and that it is your way. Help us do that, Lord. And help us share your love in service to the world throughout this year. All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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